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A SEVENTH CHILD. 



A SEVENTH CHILD 


BY 


JOHN STRANGE WINTER 

AUTHOR OF “ BOOTLES’ BABY,” “ THE SOUL OF THE BISHOP,” ETC 








NEW YORK 

J. SELWIN TAIT & SONS 
65 Fifth Avenue. 


TZ3 

S-2AT 


Copyright, 1894, 

J. SELWIN TAIT & SONS 
New York. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. We are Seven n 

II. A Strange Power 23 

III. 1 13, Great Pakenham Street 36 

IY. Free of the Spell 48 

V. ’Tis Wiser to Forget 59 

VI. Mr. Warrender’s Diamond Star 67 

VII. The Nameless One 80 

VIII. That’s my Brother 91 

IX. A Ghastly Story 101 

X. The Mysterious Paper no 

XI. That Baby 121 

XII. The Blue Bottle 129 

XIII. The Ruby Claret-Jug 138 

XIV. An Indian Telegram 148 

XV. Austin Gray 158 

XVI. Engaged 164 

XVII. A Recurrence 174 

XVIII. Miss Lorenzi 183 

XIX. At Home 196 

XX. The Inevitable 210 

XXI. In the Garden 223 

XXII. A Face I Knew 236 

XXIII. An Old Vision 249 

XXIV. One Golden Thread of Triumph 263 




































A SEVENTH CHILD 


CHAPTER I. 

WE ARE SEVEN. 

It isn’t all beer and skittles being the youngest of 
seven. Yes, I admit that ct beer and skittles ” is 
not the highest expression of social and linguistic 
art, but when you are the youngest of seven, and 
four of them are boys, you do get into a way of 
calling things by what boys always call their 
“ right ” names. I am the youngest of seven. 
Oddly enough my father was the youngest of seven, 
and my mother was also the youngest of seven, so 
that I am the seventh child of a seventh child twice 
over. I need not say that my father’s name was 
Septimus — mother always called him Sep — and 
lucky it was that she was not called Septima. She 
was not, however, for her name was Blanche. We 
seven had neither hideous names like Septimus, nor 
ultra-fine names like Blanche. Madge was the 
eldest, and there was just ten years’ difference 
between her and me, so that when I was ten years 

ii 


12 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


old, Madge was twenty, and already engaged to be 
married. 

As a matter of fact, she did not marry that man. 
Madge was excessively handsome, and she was 
engaged several times before she finally married. 
Tom always said that it was because she was 
looking out for a better match than the man in 
possession, but I never thought Tom was right. It 
is true that I never understood why Madge engaged 
herself to James Allistair. He was not in any sense 
a proper or suitable match for her, being at least 
five-and-thirty, of no particular birth, of no especial 
position, and possessed of a shockingly bad temper 
and an exceedingly jealous disposition. Of course, 
at that time of day I was too young to realize all 
that I now know about James Allistair in looking 
back upon him. 

I remember his coming one day to the old house 
on the outskirts of Minchester, which was the only 
home that I had ever known. I must have been 
ten years old then. He had walked out the half- 
mile from the town where he lived, and as he came 
up the drive I was just crossing it from the shrub- 
bery to the thicket. I don’t know where the others 
were — I think they were all scattered about the place. 

“ Hullo, Nancy ! ” said he, “ where is Madge ? ” 

I don’t know what made me say it, but I answered 
his thoughts, and said, “ Geoffrey Dagenham is not 
here/’ 

“ I said nothing about Geoffrey Dagenham, miss,” 
he blurted out. 


WE ARE SEVEM 


J 3 


I remember as well as possible looking- at him and 
saying — “ Didn’t you ask about Geoffrey Dagen- 
ham ? ” 

“ No, I didn’t. I never mentioned Geoffrey Dagen- 
ham. I asked you where Madge was.” 

“ I am sure I beg your pardon, James,” said I, 
“ I mistook you. Madge has gone down to the 
dressmaker’s.” 

‘ ‘ Do you know when she will be back ? ” he asked 
abruptly, taking no notice of my reply. 

“ No, I don’t know when she will be back, but I 
should fancy she will be rather a long time. I am 
sure she did not expect you to-day.” 

“ Oh, well, never mind. You can tell her I 
came.” And without another word, or any further 
salutation or pretence at taking leave, he turned 
on his heel and retraced his steps towards the town. 

I told Madge when she came back of how James 
had been, and what he had said and what I had 
said. 

“ But, Nancy, you little witch,” she said, in rather 
a wondering tone, “ what made you say anything 
about Geoffrey Dagenham ? ” 

“ I don’t know, Madge,” I replied, “it came to me. 
I am sure he was thinking about Geoffrey Dagen- 
ham, and I think he asked me. He said he didn’t. 
I don’t know any more than that.” 

“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter a bit,” said Madge 
kindly — she was the kindest of all my brothers and 
sisters, was Madge— “only it was odd you should 
have happened to hit upon that.” 


14 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“To hit upon what ? ” I asked. 

“Oh, well, Nancy dear, I don’t think you would 
understand if I told you, but it happens that poor 
old James is very jealous of Geoffrey Dagenham, 
and very probably he was thinking about him.” 

“But you have known Geoffrey Dagenham all 
your life, Madge,” I cried. “You knew him long 
before you ever heard of James Allistair.” 

“ So I did,” said Madge, looking away across the 
charming old garden with a far-off kind of gaze, 
“so I did — yes, so I did. However, Nancy dear, it’s 
no use saying anything more about it. Don’t tell 
the others, there’s a darling. They do worry one so 
about one’s little affairs.” 

I promised Madge that I would not, and I faith- 
fully kept the secret — if secret it could be called — 
and about a week after this, well, really, I don’t 
know quite how it happened, but something went 
wrong with poor James Allistair, and he did not 
come any more. I met him once or twice when 
Eve and I were going to school together — yes, we 
went to school because father would not be bothered 
with a governess ; he objected to governesses, and of 
course as there were seven of us we really had not 
room for one. Besides, as we all went to school, it 
left mother free during some part of the day, and, 
as father said, let the house get quiet for an hour 
or two before we came home again. Dear me, dear 
me ! I have often wondered about James Allistair, 
and why he gave up coming to the Warren. I sup- 
pose he and Madge quarrelled. I tried to find out, 


WE ARE SEVEN. 


but Madge never would talk about it, and although 
I did give a hint or two to Eve, who was five years 
older than me and just fifteen, Eve was as close as 
wax and would not split at any price — dear, dear, 
there I go again, split , that is worse than “ beer and 
skittles.” I wonder if I shall ever get off the taint 
of having had four brothers ! As I said, Eve and I 
met him several times on our way to and from 
school, but James never took the least notice of us, 
in fact, as Eve said, he was excessively rude, he posi- 
tively cut us dead, and, after all, if he had quar- 
relled with our sister it was no fault of ours, as I 
think Eve would dearly like to have told him. 

After that, Geoffrey Dagenham was everlastingly 
at the Warren. He never seemed to have anything 
to do, for he used to turn up as soon as breakfast 
was comfortably over and play tennis with Madge, 
or with Tom if Madge was not available — he didn’t 
seem particular — and then towards lunch-time he 
would lounge up to mother, who generally sat out 
in the garden on fine mornings, and say to her in 
a lazy sort of tone — “Well, I must be getting along, 
Mrs. Reynard.” And mother always looked up in 
her sweet, dreamy sort of way and said, “ Oh, must 
you? Hadn’t you better stay to lunch?” and 
Geoffrey generally said — “Well, if it wouldn’t put 
you out,” to which mother always answered, “Oh, 
my dear boy, one more or less makes no difference 
to me. If you have got nothing better to do, pray 
stay.” He always did stay, and generally Madge 
used to come down after changing her dress and say, 


1 6 a SEVENTH CHILD. 

with an air of great surprise — “ What, are you stay- 
ing again , Geoffrey ? Well, really, I think you had 
better go back and fetch your box ! ” 

Then, in the afternoon, mother generally went out 
with father. You see, she had always been ac- 
customed to spending her mornings without father, 
because, of course, when he was in the service, he 
always had officers work and parade and other 
duty of that kind — you may know what the duty of 
an officer in the barracks is, I can’t pretend I do, 
because I was not born until after father had given 
up his command of the 21st. But ever since they 
had been married, mother had always gone out in 
the afternoon with father, and when he left the 
service and became an idle man, she somehow 
made no change in that respect. As soon as lunch 
was over, the cob and cart would be brought round, 
and away they went, unless it was actually raining. 
Sometimes they made calls, and sometimes they 
did a little shopping, and sometimes they took a 
little drive further into the country than the Warren 
lay ; but we were always sure of their being away 
together between three and half-past five o’clock. 

I think Madge was unlucky. She was very 
pretty — well, looking at her from my present stand- 
point of eighteen and a half years old, I am bound 
to say that she was one of the handsomest girls 
that I have ever seen, but, at the same time, I am 
quite sure that she was distinctly unlucky. Geof- 
frey Dagenham had been a sort of day-boarder 
at our house for three months, and the brilliant 


WE ARE SEVEN. 


17 


summer was beginning- to wane into a still more 
brilliant autumn, when something happened, and 
Geoffrey did not come quite so much. The fact 
was Madge went to stay a week with her god- 
mother, and as Geoffrey was not asked — and as, in- 
deed, their engagement had not been formally 
announced to the family, that was not to be won- 
dered at — he wandered in and out for a week pretty 
much as he had been used to do, excepting that he 
talked to mother or to Tom instead of to Madge. 
But at the end of the week, Madge did not come 
back, and another week slipped by, and another, 
and another, and still she remained the guest of her 
godmother, fifty miles away. It seemed, somehow, 
quite natural and reasonable that she should stay 
away in that hand-to-mouth fashion. She was 
always coming home in two or three days’ time, 
but somehow some fresh gayety was sure to crop 
up, and a note would arrive on the morning of the 
day on which she was expected to be once more 
with us, a note saying, “Dearest Mother, I am so 
sorry to be still a day or two longer from home, but 
Lady Margaret particularly wants me to stay for a 
picnic,” or a dinner, or a dance, or a concert, as the 
case might be, “ which takes place to-night. I am 
really getting very home sick, but Lady Margaretis 
so insistent that I thought you would prefer that I 
should stay.” 

These letters got to be quite a joke in the family. 
Tom used to look up at breakfast and say, “Well, 
Madge will be home to-day,” and father used to 
2 


i8 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


say, “Ah, where’s the letter bag?” and mother used 
to take the inevitable letter with a queer little smile, 
and look across at father and then say, “Poor 
darling, she is very homesick, but it is a ball this 
time,” or, “it is a picnic this time,” as the case 
might be. And then Geoffrey used to turn up, 
looked very glum for ten minutes after the ill-news 
had been communicated to him, but eventually he 
would finish the day lounging about very much as 
he had done before. This went on for about six 
weeks, and then one day Madge suddenly arrived 
without any letter at all — and, oddly enough, Geof- 
frey did not come near the Warren that morning. 
We found out afterwards that though she had not 
written to mother, she had written to him, and, to 
put it shortly, Geoffrey came no more to the Warren 
for many a long day after receiving Madge’s com- 
munication, whatever it happened to be. 

She arrived in time for lunch, looking very much 
more grown-up than she had ever done before, with 
a radiant color and a glad light in her eyes, and the 
sunniest smile playing about her mouth. 

“ Where did you get that ring ? ” asked Tom, with 
all a brother’s bluntness. 

She held her left hand out a little, and made the 
light of a golden autumn sunbeam play upon the 
diamonds which clasped the third finger. “ Isn't it 
pretty ? ” she said. 

“ What have you done with Geoffrey’s ring ? ” Tom 
continued. 

Tom was devoted to Geoffrey Dagenham. 


WE ARE SEVEN. 


*9 


“ Oh, well, of course, it was a dear little ring,” 
said Madge, reddening a little under his inquiring 
gaze. “ Pretty idea, ‘Mizpah.’” 

“ What have you done with it ? ” asked Tom. 

“ Well, the fact is I have sent it back to 
Geoffrey. ” 

“What? You have chucked Geoffrey Dagen- 
ham ? ” 

“ I am afraid I have,” said Madge, looking very 
conscious. 

“ Madge ! ” said mother. 

“ I will tell you what, young woman,” put in my 
father in his most commandant voice, “ you will get 
yourself into trouble one of these days if you don’t 
look out ! ” 

“ Oh, yes, dear Daddy, I am afraid I shall,” said 
Madge, “ and the sooner I get married, dear, the 
better it will be for all my family. By the bye, I 
wanted to tell you that somebody is coming to see 
you this afternoon.” 

“To see me ? ” said father, rather grumpily. 

“Yes, dear.” 

“ About you and that ring ? Oh, dear, Madge, I 
wish you would get married and have done with it. 
I am tired of seeing young men on your behalf. 
Blanche, I think you had better see the young man 
this time.” 

“ He isn’t exactly a young man,” said Madge. 

“ Well, this old fellow, then,” said father. 

“ No, he isn’t old” my sister objected. 

“ Well, this man — this ring-giver.” 


20 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ I have never done that kind of thing, Sep,” put 
in mother, in her mildest tones, “ and of course, you 
have, dear. You are getting quite experienced in 
giving your consent to Madge’s engagements. I 
think it is a pity to break the rule, isn’t it ? ” 

“ No, madam, I don’t,” said father. “ Further- 
more, I am going out this afternoon, my dear. I 
have positively promised to be at the Broken Cross 
at four o’clock. I cannot wait in for your young 
man, Madge, my dear.” 

“ Oh, there is no hurry,” said Madge, easily ; “ if 
you see him at tea-time, 'that will do quite well.” 

So it happened that when Madge's new lover first 
came to the Warren, neither father nor mother was 
at home to receive him : in fact, scarcely anybody 
was at home. Eve and I had a half-holiday, and 
were engaged for the afternoon and for tea ; Charlie 
and Frank were going to play cricket ; and Dick and 
Tom indignantly went off to see how Geoffrey 
Dagenham was getting on. So Madge remained 
alone at home, and what time Mr. Devereux came, 
or what Madge said to him, I really don’t know ; 
but when we younger ones came home, they were 
all at dinner, and we didn’t get so much as a peep 
at him. Of course, the next morning we were off 
to school before he appeared again, audit was not 
until tea that afternoon — which we always had with 
mother in the large old drawing-room — that Eve 
and I met him. Somehow, when we went in, 
although Madge had a very smart frock on, and 
was looking very important with all the diamonds 


2 r 


WE A EE SEVEN. 

twinkling on her left hand, it never occurred to me 
that the tall, dark, forbidding-looking stranger, who 
was standing by the tea-table, was the supplanter of 
Geoffrey Dagenham. 

“And these are my younger daughters,” said 
mother. “This is Eve,” indicating my sister, “and 
this,” laying a fond hand upon my shoulder, “is 
little Nancy.” 

“How do you do ? ” said Eve. “How do you 
do ? ” said I ; then looked at Madge and wondered 
when he was coming. We all talked, and then two 
of the boys came in and we talked still more, and 
everybody waited upon everybody, and mother 
poured out the tea and was very gracious in consult- 
ing the exact taste of the visitor, and presently when 
Jane had come and cleared the tray and the little 
table away, he caught hold of me and drew me 
between his knees. 

“Well, so your name is Nancy, little woman, is 
it ? ” said he. 

“Yes,” I answered, “ my name is Nancy.” 

“And a very pretty name too,” was his comment. 
“And now tell me, what do you think of my 
name ? ” 

“I don’t know what your name is,” I said 
promptly. 

“ Really ? My name is Oscar.” 

“ Oscar ? ” said I, “ Oscar — Oscar what ? ” 

“Devereux, of course.” 

“ Oh — but you are not Mr. Devereux ? ” 

“ Indeed I am,” 


22 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“But you can't be Mr. Devereux?” 

“My dear little woman, I am indeed/’ 

I looked at Madge. Madge smiled. I looked at 
mother. Mother also smiled. I looked at Eve. 
Eve knew something of what was going on in my 
mind, and she flashed a glance of distinct inquiry at 
me. He, still holding me close in his strong grasp, 
began to tease me. 

“I am afraid,” said he, “my dear little Nancy, 
that you don’t think very much of me ? ” 

“ I — I — never said that,” I stammered. 

“Now, come, what is it? Are you afraid that I 
shall lock your sister up or be bad to her? Come, I 
see there is something in your face. Now, tell me, 
what is it ? Don’t you think I shall make a very 
nice husband for Madge? ” 

I looked at him. “What have you done with 
your wife ? ” I asked. 


CHAPTER II. 


A STRANGE POWER. 

If I should live to be a hundred years old, I shall 
never forget the consternation which my question 
created. Everybody seemed to say, “Nancy ! ” at 
once. They were all in different tones. Father 
thundered it, mother gasped it, my two brothers 
giggled it, and above all the babel of voices, I heard 
Madge’s ejaculation of my name ring out like a 
broken bell. In his surprise Mr. Devereux had 
loosened his hold of me. Then he caught my 
wrists again and said, “Child! What do you 
mean ? ” 

I stared at him. “ I don’t mean anything; but 
you have a wife. You are married.” 

“ How do you know ? What do you mean ? 
What are you saying? ” 

“ I didn’t know I was saying anything.” 

“ What made you say that at all, Nancy ? ” asked 
my father, sternly. 

I turned and looked at him. “I don’t know, 
Dad. It came to me. But it is true. Mr. Devereux 
said just now, ‘ How do you know ? ’ ” 

“Mr. Devereux,” said my father, “I must have 
an explanation of this ? ” 


23 


24 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ I can give you no explanation/’ said he, letting 
my wrists go and getting on to his feet. “If you 
choose to take the freak of a child’s imagination as 
a certainty, there is nothing for me to say.” 

“ But there is something for you to say,” said my 
father. “ What made this little girl suggest such a 
thing ? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders and held out his hand 
with a deprecatory gesture. “ How should I know ? 
Ask the child. She is here.” 

“ Have you ever been married ? ” said my father. 

“ Never. ” 

“ Can you prove that ? ” 

“Yes, I think that will be very easy to prove. 
Of course, I admit that the child’s extraordinary 
question startled me for a minute, and when one is 
very much startled it is difficult to weigh one’s 
words. Come, little Nancy,” holding out his hand 
to me with a great show of kindliness, “ you and I 
are going to be great friends. We won’t begin by 
misunderstanding each other. You will tell your 
father how you came to put that question to me, 
won’t you ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” I replied, “ it came to me. I 
didn’t mean to offend any one. I thought you were 
married. ” 

“ My dear child, how could you tell?” 

“ I don’t know. I thought so, that was all. I 
didn’t know that you were Madge’s Mr. DevereuX. 
I didn’t hear your name.” 

“ I see. Well, we will be quite friends. We 


A STRANGE POWER. 


25 

will not go making mistakes about each other in 
the future. ” 

“ Oh, no, I am very sorry,” I said — and it was 
true enough. 

I felt bewildered amongst them all, for I saw by 
father s face that he was not satisfied, and Madge 
was looking frightened, and mother had turned 
very pale, and as for Mr. Devereux — well, he was 
like a ghost, he was like chalk and he was trembling. 
And, after all, what had I said ? I had only taken 
him for somebody who had a wife. 

He held out his hand to me — “ We will always 
be good friends, little Nancy,” he said, holding his 
head back and smiling at me. 

I put my hand into his and then he kissed me — 
oh, I remember it so well — and then he sat down 
in the same chair in which he had been sitting 
before, and made me come and sit on his knee 
while he talked to mother about all sorts of things ; 
and after half an hour or so, he suddenly spoke to 
me. “ Little Nancy,” he said, “ what are you 
thinking of ? ” 

I had been sitting very quietly — if the truth be 
told, very comfortably — encircled by his arm. I 
was a slight little thing, very weak and fragile, and 
fully appreciated being petted and made much of. 
As he spoke, his hand closed over mine. 

“ Come,” said he, “ a penny for your thoughts.” 

“ I was thinking,” I said, “ of a lady.” 

“Yes. A nice lady ? ” 

“ I don’t know. She is tall and she wears a black 


26 


A SEVEN?'// CH/LD. 


velvet dress. She has a flashing brooch at her 
throat — it is like half a star — and it glitters like 
Madge’s ring.” 

I felt him give a great start, but the others were 
all listening and he did not stop me from going 
on. 

“ She is so pretty, with yellow hair and pink 
cheeks, and she doesn’t look quite straight with 
her eyes — I think one of her eyes is a little darker 
than the other. She is in such a pretty room, near- 
ly all blue, and she is standing with her hand on the 
mantel-shelf and her foot on the fender as if she were 
waiting. ” 

“Nancy, what are you talking about?” Madge 
broke in impatiently. 

Mr. Devereux withdrew his hand and the vision 
faded away. 

“ What did you say, Madge? ” I asked. 

“ What were you talking about? What lady are 
you describing ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Yes, I was describing a lady. 
I am sure I don’t know. It is very silly of me. 
You asked me what I was thinking about, didn’t 
you ? ” 

“ To be sure I did, and you promptly conjured up 
the picture of a charming lady, whom I am sure 
you have seen somewhere.” 

“ No, I have never seen that lady before,” I re- 
turned instantly. 

“ Well, I think you had better go away with 
Eve,” said my father at this point. “ Take her 


A STRANGE POWER. 


27 


away, Eve, she fidgets one. What has come to 
you, Nancy ? You never used to do this sort of 
thing. It is most unpleasant.” 

You know, perhaps, the way in which young 
brothers and sisters can be hustled out of the room 
when their presence becomes irksome to their elders. 
I never quite knew whether it was Eve or Madge 
or the boys or my father who hustled me out of 
the drawing-room that day. Eve was brimful of 
curiosity. 

“ I want to know, Nancy, what made you say 
that. I believe that man is married. He was in 
a perfect fright — he was yellow with fright. How 
can Madge look at him ? However could Madge 
throw off dear Geoffrey for a horrid, yellow — Ugh ! — 
I wouldn’t be Madge for something, that I wouldn’t ! 
What made you say it, Nancy ? ” 

“ I don’t know, I tell you. You ask me such 
silly questions. I only said what was in my mind. 
It came to me, I don’t know why, and Dad was 
angry, I am sure he was, and Madge was looking 

furious ” and then I broke down and ended in 

a wail of despair. 

We still had the old nurse who had been with 
my mother for twenty years — ever since Madge 
was born, in fact — and hearing me sobbing she 
came in and gathered me into her capacious arms, 
holding me fast against her comfortable bosom. 

“ What is the matter, my blessed pet lamb, my 
sweet angel bird ? Tell old nursie what it is, 
dearest. ” 


28 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


“ I don’t know, nurse. But I do feel so worried. 
People are always asking me silly questions, and 
then when I answer them they don’t like it. They 
get cross and they go white and do all sorts of 
things. I don’t know. There is a horrid man 
downstairs that Madge is going to marry. I don't 
like him, Nurse.” 

“ Eh, my lamb, but that is bad hearing.” 

“ And he asked me what I thought, and I cannot 
tell lies about it — father says it is mean and vulgar 
to tell lies, and mother looks like a dying duck in 
a thunderstorm if we suggest such a thing, as if, 
if we were to tell a lie, she would have a fit on the 
spot, and then when I tell the truth, it sets every- 
body by the ears. I only said what I thought.” 

“And what did you think, my lamb? ” 

“ I don’t know. I forget. Don’t worry me, 
Nurse.” 

“ My dear honey, I won’t worry you, but you 
seemed in trouble and I thought I could help you 
out of it.” 

That was the beauty of nurse, she never did 
worry us. She held me on her knee and rocked me 
to and fro in the big rocking-chair until I had for- 
gotten all the disagreeable sensations that had 
happened since our return home that day, and 
presently we had our usual substantial nursery tea 
and I went to bed, for once not the least little bit 
jealous that Eve was going down to dessert and I 
was not. 

Somehow, after this — I really don’t know how it 


A STRANGE POWER. 


29 


was — but home seemed rather different. You see, 
there was always that tall, black, yellow Mr. 
Devereux about, and somehow I was always glad to 
get out of the room when he was in. I didn’t like 
him. He always smiled at me when we met and 
seemed very pleased to see me. He showed his 
teeth when he smiled — they were very white, and 
they made me think of the wolf in the story of Red 
Riding-Hood. So, somehow, all the old, comfortable, 
chummy sort of feeling disappeared. You could 
not go down to the shrubbery but you had a chance 
of coming across Madge and Mr. Devereux sitting 
sentimentally on one of the rustic seats, and if you 
avoided the shrubbery and went towards the south 
garden, where the peaches grew — although, of course, 
the peaches were all over long since — you were 
pretty sure to come across them in the old summer- 
house ; and as it got colder and we were not able to 
be so much out of doors, it seemed to make no differ- 
ence which room you chose to go into — they were 
always there ! 

Really, life got to be quite a burden to us. Father 
and mother went out earlier and stayed longer, Tom 
and Dick seemed to have quite exchanged positions 
with poor dear Geoffrey Dagenham, and Charlie 
and Frank had never been so much in the old nurs- 
ery for years. Now it was better for Eve than it was 
for me. You see, she was fifteen, creeping up to six- 
teen, and I was only just turned ten. If Charlie and 
Frank cheeked her, she could just bang them ; but 
if Charlie and Frank cheeked me, I hadn’t a chance. 


3 ° 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


So it was not always comfortable for me in the old 
nursery, even when nurse herself was there. And 
Charlie and Frank expected me to do all the fagging 
for them and get none of the fun. /had to go down 
and coax cook to give me raisins, and I got none 
but what I helped myself to on the way upstairs ; 
/ had to go down and ask mother for an extra six- 
pence to buy something they wanted, but they 
always said after I had got it that girls were duffers 
and could not expect to play with boys. I really 
was tired of being shut out of mother’s drawing- 
room and kept up in that nursery, given over, as it 
were, to the boys. Of course, I might have told, 
and I might have got the boys into trouble, because 
father was always down upon anything like bully- 
ing us girls or anything of the kind ; but what would 
have been the good of that ? They would have 
called me sneak, and tell-pie, and tittle-tattle, and 
Miss Nancy for years afterwards, and life would 
have been a perfect purgatory ; it was bad enough 
as it was. So I never sneaked. I made. up my 
mind to bear it, but I can tell you I didn’t like 
Madge’s Mr. Devereux — that I didn’t — for he was 
the cause of everything. 

What a difference that man’s coming had made to 
the dear old Warren ! There was a sense of unrest 
over everything, and I think Madge felt it most of 
anybody. Almost every day he brought her some 
fresh gift, until really she had so many rings at last 
that she could not possibly wear them all at once ; 
and instead of being elated, as most girls would 


A STRANGE TOWER. 


3 1 

have been, she seemed weighed down by them, and 
she got to look pinched and ill and mopey. I don’t 
know what was the matter with her, because she 
said over and over again that she was enormously 
fond of Mr. Devereux. I didn’t like him and nurse 
didn’t like him, but father said he was very satis- 
factory, and mother said he was devoted, and Charlie 
and Frank said he was a brick, but I think that was 
because he had more than once tipped them a 
sovereign each. 

I remember the last thing before Tom went off 
to Sandhurst I heard him talking to mother about 
things, and he told mother that Oscar Devereux was 
a beast. I remember it quite well, because I was 
sitting in the little rocking-chair in the big bow- 
window of the drawing-room, just behind the muslin 
curtains, trying to read “The Little Tin Soldier” by 
the gray afternoon light. Mother was sitting by the 
fire and Tom was leaning his back against the chim- 
ney-shelf, and I heard him say distinctly — “ It is no 
use your saying anything else, mother, the man is a 
beast. ” 

“My dear Tom,” said mother, “I hope not, 
because Madge seems very fond of him. She says 
she is very much in love with him, and I am 
sure I hope there is no reason for your dislike of 
him.” 

“ I can’t give you a reason, mother,” said Tom, 
“but I have an instinct against him.” 

“ Don’t you think, dear, that you are rather prej- 
udiced with being such a friend of poor Geoffrey’s ? ” 


3 2 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


said mother, mildly. “Of course, I myself would 
much rather have had Geoffrey for my son-in-law of 
the two ; but we must not forget, in our liking for 
Geoffrey, that it is Madge to whom the great dif- 
ference will be made.” 

“ Madge always pretended she was so fond of 
Geoffrey,” growled Tom. 

“Well, she did, dear; but these things are so 
often taken out of our hands by circumstances or by 
change of mood. You see, she has known Geoffrey 
all her life, and really, I don’t know, Tom, I wish it 
could be decided for us by somebody who could 
really look into the future a little. Sometimes I 
think she is not happy and sometimes she seems 
deliriously so, and then I get thinking of poor Geof- 
frey, and really I can’t sleep at night for it.” 

“ Why did the governor give his consent ; that’s 
what I want to know ? What is this Jack-a-Dandy ? 
Where did he come from?” said Tom, thrusting 
his hands deep down into his trousers’ pockets. 

“ Well, dear, he gave the most excellent refer- 
ences. He referred your father to his lawyers and 
his bankers and to his oldest friends, and of course, 
he is making handsome settlements, we can’t forget 
that, and with all you boys, Madge can’t expect 
much. Indeed, I must do Mr. Devereux the 
justice to say that he waived all idea of looking for 
a penny with her, and of course he is very good 
looking. ” 

“Good looking!” grunted Tom. “Yes, just 
about as good looking as a Berkshire pig ! ” 


A STRANGE POWER. 


33 


“ Oh, no, my dear Tom ! Be honest, be just. 
The man is very good looking and a very fine man 
and he has charming manners, and of course he is 
generosity itself towards Madge.” 

“ Generosity ! ” growled Tom. “ Well, I don’t 
know. He has made her look like one of those big 
advertisement sheets of brooches and bangles and 
rings and things. I don’t like to see Madge 
covered all over with diamonds, as if she had 
suddenly turned pawnbroker or something of that 
kind.” 

“ Well, dear, well,” said mother soothingly, “ we 
must leave it to Madge to decide. She is not like a 
very young girl, as if it were Eve, for instance. She 
is twenty. You know, dear boy, I had married and 
was thinking about your teething when I was 
Madge’s age. 

“ Yes, I suppose so,” said he unwillingly. “ But 
I am very fond of Madge, and I don’t like the 
fellow. ” 

“ Well, try, dear, try to like him,” said mother in 
her mild and soothing voice. 

But Tom went off to Sandhurst without accom- 
plishing that part of mother’s behests, and for a 
little time life went on pretty much the same. Mr. 
Devereux stayed mostly at one of the hotels in 
Minchester and day -boarded with us, and Madge 
got thinner, and the Warren got more uncomfortable, 
and the wedding day was fixed. And then some- 
thing happened. It was me, of course — everything 
that happened at the Warren might have been 

3 


34 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


summed up in that one little personal pronoun — and 
it came about in this way. 

They were all out one day, and I was very busy 
reading “ Little Women ” — which is rather soft, 
don’t you think ? but still, interesting — by the light 
of the drawing-room fire. We had a great big 
white bear-skin lying in front of the fire which, 
with a cushion, made a most delightful place for 
reading before the lamps were lighted, and whilst I 
was still there, they all came in together — mother 
and the colonel, and Madge and Mr. Devereux. I 
believe that they had been out together, and as 
mother went to ring the bell for tea she very nearly 
walked on to me. 

“ My dear child ! ” she said. “ I almost stepped 
upon you ! Why don’t you have a lamp ? It is 
very bad for your eyes to be reading by the fire- 
light.- 

I was not accustomed to get up, looking as if I 
were going to be killed the next minute, when 
mother said anything like that, so I didn’t move — I 
was very comfortable where I was — but Mr. Deve- 
reux sat down in the big chair and lifted me clean 
off the rug on to his knee. 

“ Why, my dear little woman,” said he, in his 
most gracious tones, “ supposing you had fallen 
asleep and a big cinder had hopped out of the fire 
on to you and frizzled you all up, what then ? ” 

I don’t know whether I wriggled, but, anyhow, 
he took hold of my wrist pretty firmly with his left 
hand, that arm being passed round me. I daresay 


A STRANGE POWER . 


35 


such a question might have been very amusing for 
a little girl, which I was not, and somehow I never 
thought of answering him ; but I really don’t know 
what prompted me to say what I did, for while he 
was still grasping my wrist, I looked up at him — 
“ Why did you strike that lady?” I asked. “Did 
she hurt her head when she fell ? ” 


i 


CHAPTER III. 


I 1 3, GREAT PAKENHAM STREET. 

When I asked Mr. Devereux that question — “ Why 
did you strike that lady ? Did she hurt her head 
when she fell ? ” he behaved in the most extraor- 
dinary manner I have ever seen any one behave in 
my life. First of all, he upset me — yes, really, for 
he jumped up from his chair so suddenly and with 
such a horrid, ugly word on his lips, that I found 
myself sprawling on the big bear-skin rug before I 
knew where I was. 

“ Mr. Devereux! ” said mother, in an astonished 
tone. 

“ My dear Mrs. Reynard,” said he apologetically, 
“ I must ask you to forgive me but, the truth is 
your little daughter here really almost startled me 
out of my senses. My good child,” he went on, 
taking hold of my wrist and helping me up from 
the rug, “why do you always ask these strange, 
mysterious questions of me ? Who is the lady that 
seems to be mixed up with me in your mind ? ” 

I could feel and see that he was trembling violently, 
but he held out his hand with a great show of friend- 
liness. 

36 


1 13 , GREA T PAKENHAM STREET. 


37 

‘‘I don't know," I replied. “I — I — only said 

what came to me." 

“ But what made you speak of a lady at all ? " he 
asked as his fingers closed over mine. 

“ Because I saw her," I replied. “ You ^strike 
her, didn’t you ? " 

“ I strike a lady — strike a woman ! Really, child, 
there is something quite uncanny about you. What 
have you in your mind ? Don't you like me ? " 

“Yes, I like you when you are sitting here with 
mother and Madge and all of us, but I don’t like 
you when I see that lady." 

“ But what lady ? " 

“ Oh, she is very tall and fair, and there is some- 
thing different about her eyes. She fell with her 
head on the fender." 

“ My God ! " he muttered under his breath. 

For once my mother roused herself out of her 
charming simplicity. 

“Nancy, come here,” she said. “ Now, tell me, 
who told you anything about this lady or about 
Mr. Devereux ? " 

“ Nobody, mother," I replied. 

“ What made you say that ? " 

“ I don’t know. It came to me." 

“ How did it come to you ? " 

I looked from her to him and back, then to Madge 
and back to mother again. “ I cannot tell you — I 
— I didn’t mean to say anything to vex any of you. 
I am very sorry." 

“ You have not said anything to vex us, dear, 


38 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


but it is so strange. We want to know — I am sure 
Mr. Devereux must want to know quite as much as 
I do — what made you say anything about this lady 
at all.” 

“ I don’t know,” I answered ; and it was true, my 
mind was a perfect blank. 

“Where did you see this lady?” mother per- 
sisted. 

“ Where did I see her ? I don’t know.” 

I was frightened by their grave looks, and, child- 
like, I began to cry. My mother got up at once and 
took me out of the room. 

“You must take no notice. She is only a child,” 
I heard her say to Mr. Devereux. “Children do 
take such strange, unaccountable fancies,” she added, 
as we reached the door. 

“ Mother,” said I, when the door had safely closed 
behind us, “I didn’t take a fancy.” 

“No, dear, but something must have made you 
say that. You see you have several times almost 
startled Mr. Devereux out of his senses. What did 
make you say it, dear ? ” 

“I don’t know, mother,” I said anxiously. “I 
didn’t mean to say anything, but sometimes I speak 
as if it were not me at all. I can’t help it. ” 

“ But how came you to see Mr. Devereux strike a 
lady, dear ? ” 

I suddenly sprang away from my mother. “ He 
did strike her, he did strike her, mother, and she 
fell with her head on the fender, and she has eyes 
of a different color.” 


1 13 , Grea t pakenham street. 


39 


“But how could you see it, my dear? He has 
been near nobody. It is ridiculous. There has 
been nobody here of the description that you gave. 
How could you see what was not there to see ? ” 

“ But he did strike her,” I said. 

“ What did she do when she fell ? ” 

“She struck her head against the fender.” 

“ Well, and what did she do then ? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Did you see it ? ” 

“I think so. I am not sure. I don’t remember.” 

My mother laid her hand upon my shoulder and 
gave me a little shake — oh, no, I don’t mean to ex- 
press an unkind shake, for mother was never un- 
kind to any one in her life, but just to recall me to 
my senses, as if I was saying something, I didn’t 
know what. 

“My dear Nancy, pull yourself together,” she 
said, speaking quite firmly, “what do you mean? 
My dear Nancy, you must remember whether you 
saw it or whether you didn’t see it. You know that 
even little girls have no right to say that they saw 
things unless they are quite sure, and I, your 
mother, tell you that there has been no such lady 
here.” 

“I don’t know,” I said, breaking down into tears 
again, “I do feel so worried ; you all worry me. I 
only say what is in my head here, but you worry 
me as if I were doing it on purpose. I cannot help 
speaking when I feel like that.” 

“But how do you feel ? ” 


40 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ I don’t know.” 

“ Did you see this lady ? ” 

“ Yes, I think I did.” 

“Or do you think you were dreaming for a 
moment ? ” said mother. 

I caught at the suggestion as a drowning man 
would catch at a straw — “Yes, I think perhaps I 
was dreaming — I don’t know.” 

“Do you ever feel like that with any one else?” 
mother asked. 

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t mean to feel like 
that with him. I — I — can’t say anything more, 
mother, because I don’t know.” 

“There, there, then we won’t say anything more 
about it,” said my mother very kindly. “You 
shall go up and have tea with nurse. Don’t come 
down to-night, dear, you are excited and upset. By 
and by when Madge is gone, when she is married, 
you will feel differently about this.” 

I did have tea with nurse that day, and I re- 
member she gave me some honey, and then Jane 
came up and said that the colonel wanted me to go 
down to the drawing-room again. I went down as 
soon as nurse had made me tidy and had put me on 
a very smart clean pinafore. 

“Why, young woman,” said the colonel in his 
loudest voice, when I appeared in the drawing-room, 
“ what do you mean by deserting us in this way ? I 
cannot do without you. ” 

“I have been having tea with nurse,” I an- 
swered. 


1 13 , grEa t pakenham street. 


4T 


“Oh, have you? Then I hope you enjoyed it, 
but I didn’t enjoy my tea without you. Come and 
sit here, my Nancy.” 

He was sitting- up in the corner of a very big 
lounge, and he patted the seat beside him as an 
invitation that I should share it. I was very fond 
of my father. He was so big and jovial and so un- 
bothering. Somehow, even when he was vexed 
about things, he didn’t worry me. I think, you 
know, with children it is often so, some people 
worry them and some people don’t. Now, Mr. 
Devereux always worried me from first to last. I 
found afterwards that father knew nothing of what 
I had said to him that afternoon, and so he made 
me get out the little table and the box of dominoes 
and went on teaching me that delightful game quite 
unconscious that I and Mr. Devereux had contrived, 
less than an hour ago to thoroughly upset each 
other. 

The dressmaker came up presently to fit Madge 
for several dresses. Jane came in and fetched her, 
and she gave a laughing apology to Mr. Devereux 
and to all of us for having to go. 

“ Mother,” she said, “ I do wish you would come 
and run your eagle eye over them, because, you 
know, Miss Shepperton is very slippery sometimes, 
and pretends that one’s back is perfect when it is 
simply a mass of wrinkles.” 

So mother, laughing too, got up and went away 
with her. This reduced the company in the 
drawing-room to the colonel, Mr. Devereux and me. 


42 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


“Do you know this game, Devereux ? ” said my 
father. 

The colonel was a very polite man. He never 
left anybody to feel out in the cold, and it was a 
sort of instinct with him to at once include Mr. 
Devereux in our game. 

“Well, I have played it abroad sometimes. It is 
a great game in Germany, you know.” 

“Yes, I know it is,” said the colonel, “it is a very 
good game, a very fine game, and little Nancy here 
has the making of a player in her.” 

I had left my place on the great couch and was 
sitting in an arm-chair opposite to my father. Mr. 
Devereux came and leant upon the back of it, and 
pointed now and again with his little finger to the 
piece which he thought I ought to play. I wished 
with all my heart that he would go away. I was 
not comfortable with him there, after, what had 
taken place. I felt, somehow, as if I preferred him 
to be on the other side of the room and not leaning 
quite close to me. Besides, I was playing against 
father, and did not want to be helped and advised 
by anybody else, even if he did happen to know the 
game better than I did. That was never my idea 
of equal rights in playing anything. I daresay that 
I fidgeted a little, and that perhaps somewhat 
distracted the colonel’s attention, for instead of 
keeping it closely fixed upon the game, as was his 
regular habit, he kept up a running conversation 
with Mr. Devereux. They discussed various places 
on the Continent, both German and French, and 


1 1 3 , GREA T PAKENHAM S TREE T. 43 

then my father said that, all said and done, he 
preferred England to any other place in the world. 

“I have been every where/' he remarked, “and 
lived everywhere and seen everything and tried 
everything, and I have come to the conclusion that 
a good country town. in England is the best place in 
the world, both to live in and bring your children 
up in.” 

“You prefer it to London ? ” said Mr. Devereux. 

“Very much,” said my father. “I like London 
for a week at a time, but somehow I get kind of 
homesick if I ever stop longer. You see, I have 
never been used to it, I have never even spent a 
long leave there — not entirely, that is to say. A 
week at a time is about my form.” 

“Yes ? Then, of course, you never know but the 
outside of town. You don’t know it socially in any 
way if you spend but a short time there at once.” 

“That is true,” said my father, “but I don’t 
know that I want to know it socially. Now down 
here, in this quiet place, I get as good a time 
socially as I could get anywhere. There are plenty 
of very nice people in and about Minchester, and 
you know there is always this, Devereux, that here 
one is somebody, and in London one is only one 
of a few millions.” 

“Yes, there is a good deal in that, I admit, 
though I could not live out of London myself for 
long. I have not been out of London, since I left 
Eton, for as long a time together as I have been 
away from it now.” 


44 


A SEVENTH CHILI). 


“And you live in the Albany ?” said my father, 
holding- a finger and thumb upon a row of dominoes 
in front of him the better to select one. 

“ 1 1 3, Great Pakenham Street,” I remarked. 

I don’t know what made me say it ; I have never 
known what made me say it except it was instinct. 

My father looked up and said, “ Hallo, Pussy ! ” 
and Mr. Devereux bounced off the arm of my chair 
on which he had been sitting, crying in a passionate 
voice, “ By Heaven, but there is something in this ! 
What do you know about Great Pakenham Street ? ” 

I came to myself with a sort of shudder. “Oh, 
Daddy,” putting my hand out for protection to my 
father, “ I am so frightened ! ” 

“ My dear child,” said the colonel, “what is the 
matter? What made you say anything about Great 
Pakenham Street ? ” 

“I don't know. I don’t know. It came to me. 
I could not help it. I don’t know what Great 
Pakenham Street is,” and then I looked round at 
him. “What is Great Pakenham Street, Mr. Deve- 
reux ? ” I asked. “ Where is it ? What made me say 
that?” 

“Heaven knows,” he replied furiously; “but, 
Colonel Reynard, I can’t stand much more of this ! 
I never come near this child but she has got some 
mysterious communication to make about me. I — 
ah — h ! But of one thing I am convinced. All this 
is a plan ; she has been put up to it. ” 

“Sir ! ” cried my father. 

“I can’t help it. I daresay you will be offended, 


1 13 , GkEA T PAKENHAM STREET. 


45 


but I can’t help it. First of all she tells me I am 
married ; then she describes some woman that none 
of you have ever heard of ; then this very afternoon 
she asked me why I struck her and if she hurt her 
head falling against the fender ! What does she 
mean by it ? Now you ask me if I live in the 
Albany, and she gives an address of some rooms 
where I- — did — live — once. ” 

The words seemed to come out one by one like a 
man speaking against his will. 

My father turned round to me. “Nancy,” he 
said, “ I have never found you out in a lie in my 
life. You will tell me the truth, child ? ” 

“Why, of course, Dad,” I replied. 

“Who told you anything about Great Pakenham 
Street ? ” 

“Nobody. I give you my word, Dad. I don’t 
know what Great Pakenham Street is. It came — 
I cannot help these things — they come to me ! It 
is Mr. Devereux here, when he comes close to me 
things come into my head. I am only a little girl. 
I don’t know what they mean. Something made me 
say it. I never saw any Great Pakenham Street in 
my life. I don’t know where it is. I am frightened, 
father.” 

“ And by the Heaven above,” said my father, “ it 
is enough to make you frightened ! Devereux, I 
must speak plainly and seriously to you about this. 
There is something underhand,, there is something 
behind all this, there is something in your life 
which has not been explained to us, and I am not 


46 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


going to let my young daughter do anything for 
which she may have cause to repent — for which we 
may all be bitterly sorry by and by. This child is 
a child — a mere baby. I never, as I said just now, 
found her out in an untruth in my life — I don’t 
believe, by Jove, that a child of mine would know 
how to tell one — but it seems to me,” standing up 
and eyeing Oscar Devereux very keenly, “ that 
some power of which we know nothing may have 
put these suggestions into this child’s mind for the 
purpose of warning us, who cannot see so far as 
some unexplained power above 11s or around us. 
Mr. Devereux, you must forgive what I am going to 
say, but I must ask you to consider from to-day 
that there is a hiatus in your engagement to my 
daughter. You must give me a few days, and stay 
away from the Warren, in order that I may seek 
out this address which has come to this child like a 
thing of magic, that I may satisfy myself and my 
wife that there is no real reason for this extraor- 
dinary information coming to her. I know that you 
may think it very hard, but I consider that I have 
no choice in the matter.” 

I, child-like was staring at Mr. Devereux with all 
my eyes. Returned white, gray, almost blue while 
my father was speaking. Something in his throat 
seemed to choke him, and he put up his hand as 
if to help himself to breathe, then he bit his lip and 
turned and looked at me — such a look ! Child as I 
was, it filled me, not with fear, but it seemed to 
shrivel me all up ; but I did not turn my eyes from 


1 13 , GREA T PAKENHAM STREET. 


47 


his, I stared at him straight with all my strained 
attention fixed upon him. He only looked at me 
for a moment, then he turned away with a shudder 
and put his hand up so as to shield his eyes. ,, 

“ That child has got the evil eye,” said he. 
“Colonel Reynard, I give up my engagement from 
this moment. My marriage with Madge can never 
be. Don’t trouble to inquire into my past, make 
my peace with Madge ” — and there his voice broke 
and a suspicious quiver passed across his lips — “I 
love her, Colonel Reynard. You will perhaps never 
know how much, but all the love in the world would 
not compensate for being continually in touch with 
this little conscience here,” and then he just glanced 
at me and turned away sharp, as if I had been a 
looking-glass and he could see his guilty soul in it. 

“Am I to understand, Devereux,” said my father, 
speaking very gravely and in his most commanding 
voice, “ that you give up your engagement entirely 
without inquiry, without question ? ” 

“ Yes. ” 

“Then I am to understand that thereds something 
in what this child says ? ” 

“Oh, understand what you like.” 

“ But, ” said my father, “ do you expect me not 
to make any inquiry? ” 

“Colonel Reynard,” said the other, “I expect 
nothing. I implore you to let me pass out of your 
life, as if I had never come into it.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


FREE OF THE SPELL. 

Before we could recover from our astonishment, 
and indeed, from our dismay, Mr. Devereux had 
flung- himself out of the room. We heard the 
shutting of the hall-door a moment later, and knew 
that he had gone. My father sat down again on 
the wide lounge and looked at me in consternation 
and dismay — “Nancy, my little woman,” he said, 
“you have done it ! ” 

“But what have I done?” I asked. 

“ I am afraid you have sent that fellow about his 
business. What put it into your mind to say those 
things ? ” 

I began to whimper a little as children will do. 
“I don’t know, Daddy, they come. I can’t help it. 
Something came when he said to you — the Alderney 
— what did he say ? ” 

“The Albany,” said my father, “ the Albany.” 

“ Something inside me said, ‘113 Great Pakenham 
Street,’ I don’t know what. Do you think he ever 
did live there ? ” 

“ He said he did. Now the question is,” my 
father went on, “how are we going to break this to 

48 


FREE OF THE SPELL. 


49 


Madge. I believe Madge was very fond of the fellow. 
I don't believe he will ever come back again." 

But Madge did. She came down presently, 
wearing a pretty evening frock, a black gauzy affair 
with big transparent sleeves, and her only ornament 
was her own pretty name made in diamonds. This 
she wore at one side of the square cut bodice. 

“Well?" she said, then looked round. “Why, 
where is Oscar ? " 

My father got up, “Madge, my dear child," he 
answered, “lam afraid that I have got something 
very unpleasant to tell you about Oscar." 

“ About Oscar ? " 

“ About Devereux. He was watching me playing 
dominoes with the child, in fact, he was sitting on 
the edge of her chair, and he and I were talking 
quite idly as we played. We were talking about the 
difference of living in foreign towns and in English 
towns, between provincial towns and London. I 
told him I could not live in London and he said he 
could not live out of it. I said, goodness knows idly 
enough, ‘You live in the Albany?'* and before he 
could answer, Nancy here said in a dreamy sort of 
tone — ‘ 1 13, Great Pakenham Street ! ' My dear girl, 
the effect upon Devereux was magical. He looked 
like a — well, really, I don’t want to hurt your 
feelings, but he looked like a convicted felon. I 
told him flatly that I would have to consider the 
engagement temporarily over, that I might inquire 
into his past life, and he promptly chucked up the 
whole thing." 

4 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


5 ° 


“ Was he offended ? ” said Madge. 

She had grown very pale and her hand was 
trembling very much. She didn’t seem angry or 
even particularly surprised. 

“No, but he could not look at the child, and he 
says she has the evil eye — Such bosh ! Such 
rubbish ! ” my father went on contemptuously. 
“And yet, as I told him, I feel convinced that the 
man has a past into which we cannot inquire. I 
shall inquire into it.” 

Madge put out her hand and laid it upon the 
colonel’s arm. “ Dear Daddy,” she said, “ don’t do 
anything of the kind. I won’t say that I have been 
expecting this, yet, at the same time, I have been in 
a measure prepared for it. At all events, do nothing 
until some of us have heard from him. We shall do 
that surely. Little Nancy, what made you say it ? ” 

“I don’t know,” I replied, “I didn’t mean to 
say it.” 

“You will write down the address?” she went 
on, turning to my father. 

“Yes, I shall do so. I will do it now.” 

He went as far as the door, then turned back and 
put his arm round Madge, “My dearest,” he said, in 
a very gentle voice, “I am afraid all this has hurt 
you terribly.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Madge restlessly, “I — I — 
have felt somehow lately as if I were in prison, as 
if I were in a bottle with the cork put in tight. It 
hasn’t seemed to be me of late. He has been every- 
thing that is good and kind and considerate to me, 


FREE OF THE SPELL. 


SI 


still, I have never seemed to be quite a free agent. 
I jilted poor Geoffrey Dagenham for his sake and I 
don’t think that I was as kind to him as I ought to 
have been. Something made me do things that 
I should not have done a year ago. I don’t know, 
I don’t know, dear Daddy, what has come to me. 
I wish you would promise me something.” 

“Yes, of course, I will promise you anything.” 

“Don’t talk to me about this just for a little. 
We shall be having a letter, we must be having 
a letter, I have all his rings and diamonds and 
ornaments and all sorts of things that I could not 
keep if he is really gone away. I want to go up- 
stairs and think it out quietly. You can tell mother 
I will talk about it to-morrow.” 

Well, in ten minutes or so mother came down 
again, all unknowing of what had happened. 

“ Why, where is Oscar ? ” she asked, looking round 
the well-lighted room. 

“My dear,” said father, pulling her down on the 
lounge beside him, “something has happened.” 

“Something has happened ! What? ” 

“Well, I am afraid Devereux is gone, or rather I 
know that he is gone.” 

“Gone? Where?” asked my mother. 

“Gone for good.” 

And then he related to her everything that had 
happened, and she in her turn told him of what I 
had said when they had come in that afternoon. 

“And you think he has gone? ” said my mother. 
“ Do you think there is anything in it? ” 


S 2 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ My dear, if you had seen the fellow’s face, you 
would have thought there was everything in it, and 
where this little maid gets the clue to everything, 
as she does, simply passes my comprehension.” 

Well, they talked and they talked, but all the talk 
in the world doesn’t lessen a mystery where no out- 
side information comes to help. Mr. Devereux did 
not come back. Madge remained up in her bed- 
room. Nurse came and fetched me away to bed, 
and as I kissed mother and said good-night to her, 
she whispered to me to say nothing of what had 
happened, to keep my own counsel, lest, I turned 
my innocent words into mischief. I promised her 
and with that she was satisfied, for although we 
seven were not in any sense perfect, any one of us 
would have scorned to break a promise once given. 

I think from what I heard mother say the next 
morning, that she had expected Mr. Devereux 
would send a letter by hand to explain his abrupt 
departure to Madge, but no letter came that night, 
at least, so I gathered when I entered the dining- 
room in the morning and found father turning over 
his letters. 

“Not a letter from that fellow again,” I heard 
him say. 

“I quite thought that there would have been one 
by hand last night,” said mother. “ Is there noth- 
ing ? Are you sure ? ” 

“Perfectly certain. There is not a letter for 
Madge at all. Surely, he would never go away, 
turn tail, bolt like this without making some ex- 


FREE OF THE SPELL. 


53 


planation to the girl who was so nearly married to 
him. Besides he told me last night that he loved 
her ” 

“ Hush ; ” said mother, “ she is coming/’ 

Madge came in accompanied by Eve. She was 
looking pale, but not at all as if she had been crying 
or anything of that kind. She was wearing a 
pretty crimson dress of some soft woollen material, 
she had a little brooch at her throat that Geoffrey 
Dagenham had given her years and years before, 
and she was not wearing a ring of any kind what- 
ever. She said good-morning to mother in quite a 
cheerful tone, and she went round and laid her head 
for a minute against the colonels cheek and never 
so much as asked whether there was a letter for 
her. I thought it very queer, and I am sure, from 
the looks that mother cast at father, that they 
both thought it very queer too. Tom, of course, had 
been gone to Sandhurst ever so long, but Dick was 
at home, and he, not knowing anything of the fuss 
that had taken place the previous night, asked her 
almost before she had seated herself where all her 
grand rings were. 

Madge held out her two pretty hands in front 
of her. ** I am a bit off rings, Dick,” she said look- 
ing at him quite gayly. “I shall take fetters, my 
dear boy, quite soon enough without fettering my- 
self now. I don’t think I shall ever wear a ring 
again. ” 

“ H’m ! I suppose you will when you’re mar- 
ried, ” 


54 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“But I am not married yet,” said Madge. 

“Oh, that is the way the cat jumps, is it? ” 

“Something like that,” said she — then helped her- 
self to a piece of bread and butter and stirred her 
coffee reflectively. 

Later in the day the anxiously looked-for letter 
came. It came by the second post and Jane 
brought it in to Madge in quite an ordinary way 
upon a salver. 

“Oh, for me ? ” said Madge. “ Thank you, Jane.” 

She opened it, read it once, twice, a third time. 

“Mother,” she said at last, turning and looking at 
mother, who was stitching away quite industri- 
ously at a bit of fancy work, “you would like to 
see this, wouldn’t you ? ” 

“If it pleases you to show me, darling,” said 
mother gently. 

“Yes, I would rather that you would see it, but I 
don’t think you need tell any one else about it. Per- 
haps as it mentions Nancy, she might see it too. I 
am going out.” 

Mother caught her hand before she looked at the 
letter. “Darling, are you sure that you are not 
feeling this very deeply ? ” 

Madge looked down. “No, mother. I begin to 
think that I have not been myself for a long time. 
I begin to think that there are many things in life 
which are quite uncanny and which people ridicule 
because they do not want to believe them ; but I 
feel quite sure now that I had no free choice in my 
engagement. I had not known for months past 


FREE OF THE SPELL. 


55 


what it was to have a will of my own. I seem to 
have been always guided by some subtle and invis- 
ible power, as subtle and invisible as that power 
which prompted Nancy to say things of which she 
absolutely knew nothing, things which disclosed 
the truth. I feel better able to breathe this morning 
than I have done for a long time,” and then she just 
gently patted mother’s hand and went away, leaving 
us alone together. 

Mother read the letter. “Nancy,” she said to me 
when she had read it to the very end, “I don't 
know whether I ought to show you this letter or 
not. You are only a little girl, and yet you have 
become mixed up in your sister’s affairs in a very 
unusual and strange manner. If I show it to you I 
can trust you to keep it to yourself? ” 

“Oh, yes, mother,” I answered. 

“I don’t know what strange power enabled you 
to say what you did, but this is what Mr. Devereux 
says to Madge.” 

She handed me the letter, which was written in a 
hand so fine, so clear, so round, that I was easily 
able to read it. 

“.My own Madge,” it said, “I am writing this 
letter to wish you good-bye for always. Your 
father will have told you what happened last night 
while you were gone upstairs. Well, it was not 
very much, but it amounts to this much — that I 
cannot carry out my engagement with you. Not 
that I do not love you, Madge, I think you know 


56 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


that, but I cannot marry the sister of your little 
Nancy. I don’t know what there is about that child 
which is so antagonistic to me, she has always 
seemed pleasant and nice with me, but every now 
and again she comes out with these fearful assertions, 
and they all point to something that is true. I am 
not a saint, I have never pretended to you that I am 
a saint. There are chapters in the life of every man 
which he would not have read to the whole world in 
a clear and ringing voice. There are leaves turned 
down in my past which I would not turn back my- 
self, which I would not have my wife read for the 
riches of the universe. It is all very simple. The 
child has the gift of second-sight, and she sees 
through me from time to time as easily as she could 
look through a pane of glass into another room. I 
have not been worse than most other men, but I 
cannot stand living under a microscope, I cannot 
face having my very thoughts laid bare from time 
to time by that terrible child. So it is better that we 
should part. I don’t feel somehow that I need say 
much to you about your love. In all our inter- 
course, Madge, the love has been mine, the persua- 
sion has been mine, the influence has been mine. I 
think that you have only submitted. Your feeling 
has not been a more active one than that. I would 
have loved you, yes, I would have loved you with 
all my heart and for all my life, but now that strange 
and inexplicable mystery has come in between us 
and I can only bid you farewell, my dear love, fare- 
well for all time. Do me a last favor. I have given 


FREE OF THE SPELL. 


57 


you some trifles as pledges of my affection. Will 
you keep them ? Will you wear them sometimes in 
memory of a man who had lived through a very 
stormy life, and who had for a little while hoped to 
glide into the peaceful haven of your true affection ? 
It is the last favor that I ask of you, and feeling that 
you will grant it makes me very happy. 

“ Yours, 

“ Oscar.” 

“Now, Nancy,” said my mother, when I had 
read it to the end, “what he says about the second- 
sight is nonsense.” 

“ But what is the second-sight ? ” I asked. 

“ Oh, my dear child, it is the power of being able 
to see things that are not on the surface, being able 
to look into the soul of another human being as 
clearly as you can look at other objects with your 
eyes. I don’t believe in it. I think that he must 
himself unconsciously have given you the clue to 
some story in the past which he would not like your 
father, or myself, or Madge to know anything about. 
You know, dear, that when we have done wrong, 
we are always afraid of that wrong coming to light. 
Shakespeare says, 1 Conscience makes cowards of us 
all ’ ; and I am sadly afraid that conscience may 
have made a coward of Oscar Devereux.” 

I was still holding the letter in my hand, and just 
then, somehow, my mother’s voice seemed to fade 
away into the distance, the room to be blotted out, 
and myself transported into a room, large, dull, and 
filled with very heavy furniture. Oscar Devereux 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


58 

sat at the table writing a letter. He finished the 
letter, put it into the envelope, addressed it, took a 
stamp from a small box at hand, and fixed it to the 
envelope. Then he opened a drawer and took out 
a pistol. ... “ Oh ! Don't — Don't shoot ! ” I 
cried. 


CHAPTER V. 


'tis wiser to forget. 

For the first time in my life I fainted. I don’t my- 
self know or recollect anything about the actual 
occurrence. I remember seeing in a dim sort of 
way, Oscar Devereux sitting at a table writing, and 
then seeing him pull out a pistol from a drawer and 
put it to his head. I screamed out, and the next 
thing I knew was that I was lying on the floor with 
my head upon my mother’s lap, and nurse and 
father were standing near us. 

“ It is all right. She is coming to,” I heard mother 
say, and then they lifted me up a little and held some 
water to my lips. Well, as a matter of fact, there 
was brandy in it. 

“ I don’t like it,” I said, when I had tasted it. 

“ My dear, take a little sip of it,” said nurse, “ you 
are not very well and it is only a tiny taste of brandy. 
It won’t hurt you and will do you more good than 
anything else.” 

I took it, of course. We were always accustomed 
to do what nurse told us, because she was the kind 
of woman who never asked us to take anything, 
except with a very good reason, and for years past 

59 


6o 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


we had been in the habit of always pleasing her in 
such matters if we could do so. 

“ Why am I down here ? ” I asked, presently. 

“Oh, my dear, you are a little faint,” said mother, 
“ but you are better now, aren’t you ? ” looking down 
at me anxiously. 

“Oh, yes, I am all right, I think. I don’t think 
there is anything the matter with me.” 

“I think, ma’am,” said nurse, “that I will take 
the dear lamb upstairs and keep her quiet on the 
nursery sofa for a while.” 

“ And I think,” said father, “that I will just run 
down and fetch Somers. I don’t like this sort of 
thing happening, and it is better to hear what he says 
about it.” 

“Oh, I am not ill, father,” I declared. “I really 
don’t think there is anything the matter with me.” 

“Well, my dear, I will just let Somers have a 
look at you.” 

I was a little fragile thing, and nurse picked me 
up in her arms and carried me off to the nursery, 
which was on the first floor, as easily as if I had been 
a baby. Then she put me down on the wide old 
couch, which she drew near to the fire, and with a 
couple of pillows under my head and an eider-down 
flung over my feet, I was as comfortable as I had 
ever been in my life. 

Dr. Somers came presently, and evidently had 
heard all that there was to tell before he was brought 
up into the nursery. He examined me very closely, 
asked me a great many questions, and told mother 


* TIS WISER TO FORGE T. 6 1 

that I was to be kept very quiet indeed, that I was suf- 
fering more or less from shock. I didn’t know then 
what shock meant, but I suppose now that it was 
the horror of the vision in which I had seen Oscar 
Devereux raise his hand against his own life. 

It was years before I knew the actual end of that 
sad and tragic story. I must have been quite fifteen 
before I discovered that when, in my excitement, I 
let his letter fall from my hand, it cut off the vision 
and so mercifully prevented me from seeing the end 
of that awful tragedy. Even then, I was not told 
this in so many words, for from the day that I 
fainted in my mother’s drawing-room at the Warren, 
until I was more than fifteen, I was more frail and 
weakly than ever I had been before. It was quite 
by accident, even then, that I discovered that Oscar 
Devereux actually died by his own hand at his 
chambers in the Albany. What was the actual story 
of his life and what my father discovered in his sub- 
sequent inquiries, I have never found out yet, but, 
you see, my father and mother now, as then, are 
more than anxious to prevent my thought reverting 
to that time or to anything will remind me that I am 
gifted with the power which, in many cases, is the 
inheritance of the seventh child. 

That autumn, I continued to be very frail and weak, 
and Dr. Somers advised my parents that I should be 
taken to the south of France or somewhere on the 
Riviera, and kept during the winter as quietly and 
with as little excitement as was possible. Now, you 
must remember that there were seven of us. True, 


62 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


I was the youngest, but Frank, who was next to me, 
was only a year and a month or two my senior, and 
Charlie was but thirteen at this time, and very se- 
rious were the discussions which took place between 
my father and mother, in their anxiety that I should 
be best cared for, in a way which would not too 
much interfere with the interests of my brothers and 
sisters. 

Eventually, I started with mother and nurse for a 
little town on the Italian coast, a little town lying be- 
tween Genoa and Leghorn, where the sun always 
seemed to shine, where the skies always seemed to be 
radiant, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean 
but reflected the brighter glory of the skies above. 
It had been suggested that Madge should go with us, 
but Madge herself stoutly declined the expedition., 

“No, dear mother/’ she replied, when the ques- 
tion was mooted to her, “ you are taking nurse with 
you, and it is quite out of the question for me to go 
also. While I am here, you will have your mind at 
rest, and as I ail nothing there is no earthly reason 
why I should go. I will look after the colonel and 
after all the others for you and let you know very 
often how we are getting on. So you can go off 
with a free conscience, and take care of Nancy as 
comfortably as if we were all with you, instead of 
being left behind.” 

That winter by the sunny shores of the Mediter- 
ranean did wonders for me. There were several 
other English families there, some with children, 
some without, and we were all very friendly and had 


’TIS WISER TO FORGET. 


63 


quite a splendid time together, and as everything 
went well at home mother was perfectly happy and 
contented in her mind. Of course, we heard from 
them all pretty often. The colonel, indeed, wrote 
twice a week regularly, and Madge almost as often ; 
while the boys' letters were decidedly intermittent, 
and Eve contented herself by scrawling a line at the 
foot of Madge's letters, and sometimes with only a 
message. And long before we were ready to go 
home again, mother got the news that Madge and 
Geoffrey Dagenham had made it up again and that 
Geoffrey was just as much at the Warren as he had 
been before Madge’s last engagement. Father, who 
told her, said that he didn’t think there was any idea 
of an engagement between the two, that they seemed 
friendly and that was all. “I think," he added, 
“ that young Dagenham has had a lesson and has 
profited by it. As for Madge, she is looking quite her- 
self again and seems to have forgotten the past 
altogether. " 

“So," said my mother to me, “ when we go home 
again, dear child, be sure that you don't do or say 
anything which will in any way remind Madge of 
what has gone by." 

“But," said I, “supposing Oscar Devereux comes 
back again ? ” 

“I don’t think Oscar Devereux will come back 
again," said my mother, in a tone of conviction, 
“but in any case, the less it is talked about the 
better, and indeed, I don't want Madge to be re- 
minded of her affair with him in any way whatever. " 


64 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


However, for once the colonel turned out to be 
utterly wrong, for when we got back again to the 
Warren — I feeling ever so strong and well — we 
found Geoffrey Dagenham just on the old terms, 
and Madge apparently very well satisfied that it 
should be so. Really everything seemed just as it 
used to be before Madge went and got herself mixed 
up with that horrid black and yellow Mr. Devereux. 
Geoffrey Dagenham must have been very forgiving, 
or else her explanations must have been very satis- 
fying, for he never by word or look alluded to the 
past in any shape or form, and during the early 
summer weather, when the roses were all in bloom 
and the Warren was looking its very best, Geoffrey 
and my sister were married. They were married 
quite quietly, Madge wearing a pretty white walking- 
dress and a little white straw bonnet, trimmed with 
a cluster of white roses. Very charming she looked, 
very happy, and Geoffrey Dagenham was simply 
radiant, and so, as the colonel said, with a great 
sigh of relief, “ That is all happily settled and done 
with ! ” And then he looked at mother and mother 
smiled back at him, and, somehow, none of us so 
much as thought of shedding a single tear over an 
event which was a very great delight even to the 
youngest of us. 

So summer passed over. After a long honeymoon 
spent on the Continent, Madge and Geoffrey came 
back to their own home, though really, they seemed 
to be always at the Warren on some excuse or an- 
other. And then, as the autumn crept on, I some- 


*TIS WISER TO FORGET. 


65 


how got ill again and I was once more bundled 
off to a climate where I could get more sunshine 
than is possible in England at that time of year. 

We did not go back to the same place, for Eve 
went this time, as mother and the colonel thought 
that it would be good for her to have a winter in a 
French-speaking country. The boys were all at 
school now, and Madge agreed to have them at 
Dagenham for the holidays, so the Warren was let 
to some one who wanted to be in Min Chester for the 
hunting, and we were soon all settled down in a 
little white villa not very far from Cannes. This 
really was our life for the next four years. Tom 
went into the army, and Dick, by his own desire, 
went into business and had become quite a fashion- 
able young man in London, or what seemed so to 
us. Charlie was at Marlborough and Frank was at a 
preparatory school and expected to make the change 
to Marlborough at Easter. 

Now at this time, there was really little or nothing 
the matter with me. When I was in a warm climate 
and watched over by old nurse, I seemed to ail noth- 
ing ; but although I enjoyed the English summers, 
the English autumns played terrible havoc with me. 
I became thin and transparent-looking, and my appe- 
tite fell off altogether ; I was but a poor thing, and 
looked it. The moment that we got back to the 
shores of the Mediterranean, I began to mend, and 
so it fell out that during the next four years, we 
spent about six months of each one at or near 
Cannes. 

5 


66 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


At this time, any idea of my being possessed of 
the second sight had been quite lost sight of by my 
family and in fact, by myself also. I was growing 
very fast, and was an awkward, gawky sort of girl, 
very much spoiled and petted by my father, whose 
favorite I was, as far as he permitted himself to 
have a favorite amongst us — for surely, never was 
a man more truly fond of all his children than 
the colonel was of us, But nothing unpleasant 
happened, the past was never alluded to by any of 
us, and it was not until I was between fifteen and 
sixteen that my strange power once more declared 
itself. 


CHAPTER VI. 


MR. WARRENDER’s DIAMOND STAR. 

We had not been very long back from Cannes. 
The Warren had been thoroughly renovated during 
our absence, the man who had had it that winter 
having left at the end of March. It was the middle 
of May before we returned from the South, and 
under Madge’s supervision the entire house had 
been re-papered and painted, so that everything 
looked very spick and span for our home-coming. 
Almost immediately after we had settled down, Tom 
came home on a fortnight’s leave, accompanied by 
a great friend, a brother officer. There was very 
little for them to do, beyond the attraction of the 
Minchester May races, but they organized several 
rat hunts and pursuits of suchlike small game. The 
men went to the races every day as long as they 
lasted, and we went over to Dagenham whenever 
they had nothing to do and played tennis on the 
asphalted courts, and in the evening there was 
generally something going on. There were a couple 
of concerts while Tom was at home and two new 
pieces at the theatre. Then we all dined at Dagen- 


68 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


ham, and several times Geoffrey and Madge came 
over and dined at the Warren, so that on the whole, 
we had as gay a time as any one could expect to 
have in an ordinary country town at that particular 
season of the year. 

It happened one night, when Madge and Geoffrey 
had come over, that after dinner we got playing 
silly games just as we had been used to do when we 
were all children. Among other things, we were 
playing that ridiculous game of “ Consequences , ” all 
crowding round the dining-room table and scribbling 
away for dear life — what he said, what she said, 
what the world said, and what the consequences 
were. You know the game, of course. By some 
chance I happened to find myself next to Tom’s 
friend, Mr. Warrender. I had just written down an 
adjective — as a matter of fact, it was the word 
“squinting” — and having turned down the edge of 
the sheet of paper, passed it on to my left-hand 
neighbor, who happened to be Geoffrey Dagenham, 
and when I put out my right hand to receive the 
paper from Mr. Warrender he teasingly tried to keep it 
from me. However, he eventually let me have it, 
and I added the name of a man in the neighborhood 
well known to us all. The next time his paper 
passed to me, he again tried to keep it from me, and 
again, and again, until we got right down the list of 
necessary remarks as far as the one which tells 
“ what the world said.” When I held out my hand 
to receive the paper from him, he made the usual 
pretence of withholding it from me, and caught hold 


MR. WARRENDER'S DIAMOND STAR. 69 

of my hand. I daresay he thought it was very funny 
for so young a girl as I, but I only thought it rather 
silly. I meant to have the paper, and was holding 
on to it like grim death, when he said to me, laugh- 
ingly — “I wonder what your consequences will 
be, Miss Nancy ? ” 

“ Well, not the same as yours are, ’’ I replied. 

“How do you know what my consequences 
are? I haven't written them myself yet,” he 
said. 

I really don’t know what came over me — a sort of 
feeling as of electricity, a something passing from 
his hand, as it were through the paper and into my 
arm — a horrid sensation . 

“You ought not to let him do it,” I said warn- 
ingly. “ It is such a pretty star. Why should you 
let him take the stones out ? ” 

•“The stones? What do you mean?” he stam- 
mered. 

“Why, that star, you know — the diamond-star. 
Don’t you know, there’s a man in uniform picking 
the stones out of it, he is pushing them out with his 
penknife.” 

In his surprise, he pushed his chair back and 
stared at me with wide-open eyes indicative of the 
utmost consternation and surprise, as also were his 
parted lips. 

“What on earth are you thinking about?” he 
asked. 

In our surprise, the paper which we had both been 
holding fell on to the table. 


?o 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“I don't know," I answered vaguely. “You 
asked me something about it. It was a star." 

“But how did you see that? Tell me, what do 
you know about a star ? " 

“I don't know anything," I answered. 

“What made you say that to me just now ? " 

“ I don’t know," I replied, “it came somehow. 
Have you lost a diamond star? " 

“ Of course, I have. But surely Tom told you all 
about it ? " 

“ Not a word ! " said Tom, from the other side of 
the table. “ I say, Nancy, you are at your old tricks 
again." 

“My tricks ! " I looked round the ring of eager 
faces and met my father’s penetrating gaze. 

“ Miss Nancy," said Mr. Warrender, turning into 
his chair and looking at me searchingly, “ did some- 
thing in your brain tell you of that star which I 
lost ? " 

“ Yes, I suppose so. You have lost a star, haven’t 
you ? " 

“Of course I have. Not only that, but my serv- 
ant is actually under arrest at the present moment 
for stealing it and he stoutly denies all knowledge of 
it. Are you sure you didn’t hear anything about it ? " 

“Perfectly certain." 

“Do you mind taking hold of my hand and see- 
ing if the knowledge comes back to you ? " 

Of course, I took hold of his hand, and almost 
immediately the impression of a bare, ill-furnished 
room came to me. 


MR. IV A R RENDER'S DIAMOND STAR. 


71 

“Now, tell me what you see?” he said im- 
ploringly. 

His voice sounded far, far away, and the entire 
room in which we were sitting seemed to have gone 
from me. “I see a square room with two small 
windows in it,” I replied. “ It has a square carpet 
in the middle with a green border. There is only 
one nice picture in the room — it is ‘ The Huguenots/ 
the one where the girl is tying a white band round 
her lover’s arm. ” 

“Yes, go on ! ” said he eagerly. 

“There is a little bed in one corner covered by a 
fur rug and some crimson pillows at one end — or 
perhaps it is a sofa. There are some pegs on the 
wall with some belts and a forage cap with a gold 
border, and a row of boots on a sort of cupboard on 
one side of the fireplace. On the other side of the 
room, opposite to the bed is a chest of drawers, 
very plain with brass handles. I see a gentleman 
come into the room — oh, yourself ! You walk up to 
the fireplace and are standing filling your pipe, then 
you strike a match and light it. Now you are sit- 
ting down in the big chair, which has arms made of 
broad straps with brass hooks to lower or raise them. 

• You are reading a letter and you put it down and 
hang your arm over the side of the chair as if you 
were very tired, and at last you look up and there 
is a little clock on one corner of the mantel-shelf — 
the mantel-shelf has a fringe round it and brass 
nails — and you haul yourself up as if you were dead 
beat. Now you are going out of the room. There 


7 2 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


— you have shut the door, the room is empty, the 
room is quite empty — somebody is coming ! A 
man enters, a red-haired man ” 

“That is Mason,” I heard him say across the 
table to Tom. 

“He has his hair cut very short, and he is wear- 
ing a tan-colored suit. He seems to be a servant, 
for he tidies up the room and then he fills his pipe 
out of the tobacco jar and he lights a match just as 
you did. Now he is going. There is nobody in the 
room, again it is quite empty. Stay — the door opens 
again, very gently, somebody looks in, a man with 
black hair, black moustache trained to a spike on 
either side. He has a big blue ring on his finger. 
He comes in, looks round, shuts the door behind 
him, goes to the mantel-shelf, reads some of the 
letters, fills his pipe, but not out of the jar on the 
mantel-shelf, fie smells that and puts it down with 
a gesture of disgust. He has a little pouch in his 
pocket with a monogram worked in colored silks on 
one side of it, he fills his pipe from that and lights 
it from a box of matches on the mantel-shelf. Then 
he looks round the room, takes some keys out 
of his pocket, tries the drawer, opens it, takes a 
case out of it, locks the drawer again, puts the keys . 
back in his pocket — the pocket is in the breast of his 
tunic, he is in undress uniform — then he walks across 
the room, back to the fireplace again. He opens the 
case, which is still in his hand. There is a diamond 
star in it. He drops the case into the middle of the 
fire. It is burnt up in a moment. Then he quietly 


73 


MR. IVAR RENDER'S DIAMOND STAR. 

sits down and seems to be picking the stones out of 

the star It is all gone ! I can’t see any more ! ” 

I ended. 

In an instant the whole vision had faded away 
and I was once more sitting at the table in the din- 
ing-room at the Warren, with a dozen eager faces all 
turned towards me. 

“This is perfectly awful!” said Mr. Warrender, 
looking across the table at Tom. “Are you 
sure you never said anything about it to your 
sister ? ” 

“My dear chap, didn’t we agree not to speak of 
it ? Didn’t we agree, the day we came down here, 
that we would not mention it at all ? ” said Tom 
without hesitation. 

“ Yes, but I didn't know whether you might have 
forgotten that.” 

“ I swear to you that I haven’t breathed a word 
about it to anybody, not even to the colonel here. 
Nancy has been at her old tricks. Nancy is right 
enough. My dear chap, you have only got one 
course to follow — go back and take your man from 
under arrest at once, and put the guilt on to the 
person to whom it is due.” 

“ But, my dear Tom, you can’t think that ” 

“ You had better not mention any names,” said 
Tom, leaning his elbow on the table and biting his 
knuckles, which was a habit Tom had when he was 
at all excited or worried. “ I’ve not said a word, I 
tell you ; I haven’t seen Nancy alone for more than 
a year. When I was al home last on anything like 


74 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


a long leave, the man that she described to you to- 
night was not in the regiment. ” 

“ Is that so ? ” 

“ If I remember rightly, mother, you came home 
a month earlier last year than you did this ? ” 

“ Yes,” said mother, “ that is quite true.” 

“And I spent about three weeks here ? ” 

“Yes, so you did.” 

“I tell you I haven’t seen Nancy alone since, and 
that man only came into the regiment last June or 
July. Nancy knows nothing whatever about him. 
I have got something else to do than to write home 
long descriptions of my brother officers or of their 
quarters, or even what transpires in the regiment. 
There never was a worse letter-writer than I am. I 
daresay my mother can show you a good many 
letters of mine that begin and end on one page, and 
as for you, sir,” looking at father, “ my epistles to 
you are even more business-like than that.” 

“ My dear Tom,” said the colonel, “ your epistles 
to me generally consist of this — ‘Dear Colonel, can 
you send me ten pounds and oblige your affectionate 
son, Thomas Reynard ? ’ ” 

“But I can’t think,” cried Mr. Warrender, still 

with the same frank unbelief 

“You needn’t think at all,” broke in Tom, “it 
isn’t necessary for you to think. This doesn’t sur- 
prise any of us. Nancy has seen things before, much 
more serious even than this matter of your diamond 
star. What Nancy sees in that extraordinary second- 
sight sort of way you may depend upon as being 


MR. WARREN DER'S DIAMOND STAR. 


75 


absolutely correct. You have only got one course, 
my dear chap — go back to-morrow, tell the colonel 
everything, tax the man with it, set your servant 
free. You will find that you will probably get your 
diamonds back and there will be a change in the 
regiment just about as soon as you can say ‘Jack 
Robinson ! ’ ” 

“But what is the meaning of it ? ” said the colonel. 
“ Have you lost a diamond star ? ” 

“Colonel Reynard,” said Tom’s friend, “ it is like 
this. We gave some private theatricals a short time 
ago for the benefit of the Soldiers’ Institute at Dan- 
ford. I had to play the part of Charles I. — yes, I 
admit it was a very ambitious thing to do, but we 
took it into our heads we would do Charles I., 
and we got the necessary permission and we did it 
— more or less badly, I need hardly explain to you. 
Among other things, it was necessary that I should 
wear a diamond star, and a lady — the wife of one of 
the officers — lent me one. I didn’t have the oppor- 
tunity of returning it to her the same evening, and 
the next day it disappeared out of my despatch box 
in my chest of drawers, which is the usual tiling you 
see in a man’s quarters. My servant admitted hav- 
ing been in the room between my going to afternoon 
stables and round the teas, and coming back for 
some tea and toast, which I had that day in my own 
quarters. When I went away, the star was there, 
and when I came back, it was gone. Naturally, 
suspicion pointed to the servant, and he has been in 
cells ever since.” 


76 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“And you may bet your very life,” said Tom, 
leaning back in his chair and thrusting his hands 
deep down into his trouser-pockets, “that the poor 
chap never touched the star, and that the other one 
did. I always had my suspicions of that fellow, 
Warren der, always.” 

“ But do you mean to say,” put in the colonel, in 
a voice that was an odd mixture of indignation and 
curiosity, “ that Nancy’s description of the man who 
took the star tallies with that of one of your brother 
officers ? ” 

“ In every respect,” said young Warrender delib- 
erately. 

“Tallies as a photograph tallies with its original,” 
put in Tom, with conviction. 

At this point, Geoffrey came into the conversa- 
tion — “I say, old chap,” said he, speaking across 
the table to Tom, “what made you say that Nancy 
was at her old tricks again ? ” 

Tom looked at Madge, who turned a vivid guilty 
scarlet, the first time I had ever seen my sister flush 
painfully in the whole of my life. I perceived in an 
instant that she had never told him the whole story 
of her engagement to Oscar Devereux. I was 
greatly surprised, because ever since they had been 
married, I had always believed Madge to be utterly 
wrapped up in her husband, and would not have 
credited her with being able to keep even the small- 
est thing back from him. Yet, evidently, she had 
kept back this whole story, had kept it absolutely to 
herself. 


MR. WA R RENDER'S DIAMOND STAR. 


77 


“Why, of course,” Tom began, “it was Nancy 
that showed up—” and then I think somebody’s 
foot must have conveyed a hint to him that he had 
better stop, for he broke off short and after looking 
round the table bit his words off with an embarrassed 
laugh — “Really, Nancy, old lady, I must apologize 
to you for discussing you in this way,” he said to 
me, and very awkwardly he said it, “don't let’s 
talk about it any more. I will tell you by and by, 
Warrender. It’s rather a sore subject with the 
young lady ! ” 

It was all very well of Tom to put it all on to me 
and say that it was a sore subject to me when, as a 
matter of fact, it was not. I was not in the least 
touchy or sore about my occasional power of giving 
impressions. However, for Madge’s sake, I didn’t 
mind being given away so unmercifully so long as 
Geoffrey’s attention was taken entirely off the sub- 
ject. 

Later on, when he and Madge had gone home — 
indeed, after, I had gone to bed — Tom came into 
my room and sat down on the edge of my bed to 
talk things over. 

“Isay, Nancy, old lady,” he began, “ you really 
did see all that to-night, didn’t you ? ” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” I answered. “I don’t see 
it now, if that is what you mean.” 

“ How do these things happen to you ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” I replied. “When it comes to 
me, I tell it. It has to come out. I couldn’t keep it to 
myself. Beyond that I cannot tell you anything.” 


78 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“But do you really see things ? ” 

“I suppose so. Yes, I certainly have the im- 
pression that I see them.” 

“ Well, you have made it very awkward for that 
chap, you know.” 

“I can’t help that,” I answered, “he shouldn’t 
steal diamond stars. ” 

“No, that is true enough. I think I shall go up 
with Warrender to-morrow and see the thing 
through. Of course, it is awfully rough luck for the 
poor chap who has been in the cells all these days 
on account of it. As I said to Warrender at the 
time, it is all owing to the poor devil having red hair. 
Somehow people who have red hair always get sus- 
pected of every villainy under the sun, and this poor 
beggar has got the reddest hair you ever saw in 
your life ! It is carrot-colored. Not that I like red- 
haired people,” my brother went on reflectively. 
“By Jove, I would not marry a red-headed 
woman ” 

“ My dear Tom, ’’said I, “ I should hope you are 
not going to marry any kind of woman, red-headed 
or green-headed, or with any other colored head 
that you like to mention. Why, you haven’t got 
sense enough, my dear boy, to keep your feet out 
of the most awful trap you can possibly think of J 
Why, you nearly gave Madge away to Geoffrey to- 
night ! ” 

“ Well, now, how on earth was I to know she had 
never told Geoffrey a word about it ? ” 

“ What made you stop as you did ? ” I asked. 


MR. WAR RENDER'S DIAMOND STAR. 


79 

“I don’t know, but I had a kick which I should 
say I shall feel for a week ! ” 

“It couldn’t have been Madge,” I said with a 
laugh. 

“ Oh, no, it wasn’t Madge, she was too far away. 
I think it was the governor. By Jove, it was a shin- 
ning ! Still, it’s nothing to what will happen to- 
morrow, speaking metaphorically.” 

“ What will be the result ? ” I asked. 

“Oh, for — oh, by the bye, I had better not tell 
anybody who it was, not even you. I expect it 
will be hushed up, you know. He will have to 
give up the star and clear out of the regiment. It 
would never do to have a scandal about it. He 
will just have to go. But, by Jove, I wouldn’t stand 
in that fellow’s shoes for something ! ” 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE NAMELESS ONE. 

Early on the following day my brother Tom and 
his guest, Mr. Warrender, went off to Danford, 
where their regiment was quartered. We had quite 
an early breakfast, and we all got up for it, but no- 
body said \ r ery much about my vision of the pre- 
vious evening, probably because Mr. Warrender had 
really believed in Tom’s awkward assertion that my 
gift was a sore point with me and that I should be 
better pleased if it was not talked about and dis- 
cussed. 

“I expect we shall be back by eight o’clock, 
mother,” said Tom, just as they were about to start. 

“ I suppose you will try to catch the five fifteen 
train,” put in the colonel. 

“Yes, if we get through this business,” Tom re- 
plied. 

“ Well, that does not get into Minchester till eight 
thirty-seven,” said my father, who always carried a 
little local time-table in some convenient pocket, 
to the great comfort of his family and acquaint- 
ances. 

“In that case,” said mother, “we will make 

80 


THE JVAMELESS ONE. 


8 


dinner at nine. It will prevent you finding an un- 
eatable meal if you do catch that train . " 

"‘Thank you so much, Mrs. Reynard,” said Mr. 
Warrender. “I really feel that I am giving you a 
tremendous lot of trouble, but I am afraid I cannot 
help myself in this particular instance.” 

“Oh, no trouble at all,” said my mother easily; 
“ and even if you did give me a very great deal of 
trouble, I would not grudge it to save a poor fellow 
from being unjustly accused, especially a soldier 
too,” and then they had to rush off and tear down 
the road as fast as they could go, or, as Tom put it, 
“just bolt as quick as they could lay legs to 
ground. ” 

When they had fairly gone we four — father, 
mother, Eve and I — went back to the table to finish 
our breakfast. After a moment’s silence, the 
colonel looked across the table at mother. 
“ Blanche,” he remarked, in a tone of some surprise 
— “did you know that Madge had kept all that 
about Devereux from Geoffrey ? ” 

“Well, yes, I did,” mother replied; in fact, Sep, 
she spoke to me about it at the time of the renewal 
of the engagement, and when I found what an in- 
superable objection she had to speaking of Oscar 
Devereux to any one, and to Geoffrey most of all, I 
advised her to make it a condition with him that 
they let that subject alone forever. I daresay I 
ought to have warned all the others, but it never oc- 
curred to me that any one would think of alluding to 
it, and you know, sometimes when one has espe- 
6 


82 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


cially warned people off dangerous ground, it seems 
to create the strongest desire to drag that one matter 
into their conversation.” 

“Yes, yes, you are quite right, my dear, as you 
generally are,” said the colonel easily. “And of 
course, no one would have expected Tom or any one 
else to be such a complete fool as to allude to so 
delicate a matter before strangers. It was lucky 
that I was near enough to stop Master Tom before 
he had time to go any further.” 

“Oh, was it you that gave Tom that kick ! ” I ex- 
claimed. 

“ Yes, but how did you know anything about it ? ” 
my father asked. 

“Tom came into my room last night, and he told 
me that some one had almost broken his leg. Oh, 
he wasn’t vindictive about it, ” I added with a laugh. 

“I should hope not,” rejoined the colonel in an 
amused tone. “Of course, I’m sorry if I hurt the 
lad — hurting my youngsters is not much in my line 
and never was. But at a moment like that, one can- 
not stop to think out a gentle reminder ; one has 
only one object, to change the subject. I must apol- 
ogize to poor old Tom when they come back again. 
By Jove, what a devil of a row there will be when 
they explain matters to Le Merchant.” 

But when the two boys did come back they 
seemed altogether disinclined to talk about what had 
happened during the day. They were both tired 
out and said that they wanted their dinner beyond 
all things. So we let them eat in peace though we 


THE NAMELESS ONE. 


83 


were all simply dying to hear what the upshot had 
been. And at last, when the two servants had 
gone out of the room and father had handed the 
cigarettes round, they gratified our very natural 
curiosity. 

It was Tom who began the disclosure. “I say,” 
he began half-hesitatingly, “ I’ve promised and 
vowed all sorts of things in all of your names. We 
settled that business, and Colonel Le Merchant 
wanted us both to promise that we would not 
breathe a single word of what had taken place to 
any living soul. But, as I represented to him, that 
was all very well, but the truth had come out 
through my sister, and I was bound to satisfy her 
that she had not been making mistakes and perhaps 
putting every one on the wrong track. So, as the 
old chap saw the reasonableness of that, I eased his 
mind by promising that I would bind you all down 
to secrecy before I gave you a single detail of what 
took place at Danford to-day. I suppose you are all 
perfectly ready to give such a promise? ” 

We all declared our willingness to comply with 
this very reasonable requirement, and then Tom did 
his tale unfold. 

“Well, Warrender and I got to Danford soon after 
eleven o’clock, and went straight to the orderly- 
room to see if the chief happened to be there and 
disengaged. He was there, apparently up to his 
eyes in work — you know, sir, how a commanding- 
officer can surround himself with all the evidences 
of a toil-worn and laborious life — but I don’t think 


84 


A SEVEN 7 V/ CHILD. 


it is necessary for me to explain to you what make- 
believe most of it is, or what a show-figure the 
commanding-officer usually is.” 

Tom paused here in a most effective sort of way, 
and Mr. Warren der looked up as if he expected a 
perfect storm of indignant denial from our father. 
However, if that really was what he expected, all I 
can say is that it didn’t come off. Father puffed 
away at his cigarette in the most perfect good 
humor and waited for Tom’s story. He was used 
to that kind of chaff, and indeed had encouraged it 
in every one of us ever since we could toddle. 
Tom, finding that the colonel was not to be drawn 
this time, went on with his story. 

“He looked rather surprised to see us and asked 
what had brought us ? And really, when you come 
to think of it, it must have been a startler for him, 
particularly as he had made such an awful fuss over 
giving us our poor little scrap of leave from the 
delights of soldiering. I gave a hint to Warrender, 
and Warrender dug his elbow into my ribs as an in- 
ducement to me to go ahead and get the whole 
matter over as soon as possible. ‘The fact is, 
Colonel,’ I said, finding that Warrender was deter- 
mined to shove everything on to me — ‘we have a 
very important communication to make to you and 
if you could spare us a few minutes alone ’ 

“ ‘ Certainly — certainly — ’ the chief replied 
promptly. ‘Er — er — Mr. Villebois, we can finish 
that little matter presently. Orderly, you can go, 
I’ll send for you by and by, ’ 


THE NAMELESS ONE. 


85 


“ As the two went out of the room/’ Tom con- 
tinued, “the chief sat in his chair and looked at us. 

‘ Now/ he said, ‘ what is this business ? ’ 

“ I simply cannot tell you,” my brother went on, 
“ the effect of my story on the colonel. Really, I 
thought more than once that the poor old chap was 
going to have a fit on the spot. ‘ This must be 
kept quiet/ he said, and he was regularly shaking, as 
if he had had a hand in the affair. ‘ We cannot have 
it said that such a thing happened in the old 26th ; 
the regiment would never get over it, never. 
Gentlemen, this must go no farther. Even the sus- 
picion that one of my officers could be thought 
capable of taking the property of another must not 
be allowed to creep out into the world. But, of 

course, I can give no opinion until Mr. we can 

call him Mr. X , for convenience’ sake — has 

heard what you have to say. ” 

“And by the by,” Tom went on after a 
moment’s pause, “I promised the chief that in 
any case I would not divulge the name to a liv- 
ing soul. Warrender, you too made the same 
promise.” 

“ I did,” said Mr. Warrender. 

“Anyway,” Tom continued, “ the chief sent for 
the man — the one that you saw, Nancy — and said 
he required his presence in the office immediately. 
In a very few minutes he came. ‘You sent for 
me, sir?’ he said inquiringly; then looked at us 
‘All, you back again,’ he remarked, ‘ good-morning. ’ 
“ ‘Mr. X / said the chief, in his most heavy 


86 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


father style of voice, * I sent for you to give you an 
opportunity of hearing something that has come to 
my knowledge this morning. You will not have 
forgotten that Mr. Warrender here lost a diamond 
star under somewhat unusual circumstances a short 
time ago. Mr. Warrender has reason to believe 
that you were the person who took it. Have you 
anything to say in the matter?’ 

“ I never,” Tom went on, “saw a man so struck 
all of a heap in my life. lie turned and glared at 
Warrender as if he would just have killed him then 
and there if he had dared to do it. ‘ Mr. Warrender 
says that /took his star ?’ he blurted out. ‘Then 
why did Mr. Warrender permit his servant to be 
arrested and to be under arrest now, unless I am 
very much mistaken ? ’ 

“‘That is not the question, sir,’ thundered the 
chief, in an awful voice. ‘The only question with 
which you have anything to do is this — did you or 
did you not take the star?’ 

“ ‘ Sir, you insult me,’ the other burst out. 

‘ ‘ ‘ Not intentionally. It cannot be more painful to 
you to be asked such a question than it is for me to 
have to ask it,’ the chief replied, promptly. 

‘ But I think you had better tell Mr. X exactly 

what happened last evening.’ 

“ I did so,” Tom went on, “I repeated every little 
detail of your vision just as you told it to us, and 

then X stood up and gave an unqualified denial 

to everything. Warrender and I were perfectly 
nonplussed, for the fellow put it to the chief in such 


THE NAMELESS ONE. 


87 


a plausible way that it sounded real enough. M 
ask you, sir/ he said, in the most reasonable tone 
in the world, ‘ what on earth would be the good of 
a diamond-star or any other star to me? I am 
more than rich enough to buy fifty such things if I 
needed them. But I don’t need them. I have no 
earthly use for them. Besides, it would be absurd 
to blast a man’s whole career on no better authority 
than the sickly fancy of an hysterical young girl. 
I think I have heard you say, Reynard, that your 
young sister has had to winter in the South of 
France for several years ? * which, of course, I was 
obliged to admit was the case. 

“However, I began to feel, the more the fellow 
explained things away, that I was right and that he 
had taken the star, whether he actually had any 
need of it or not. So I put just one little spoke in 
his wheel which had the effect of completely changing 
the general aspect of affairs. ‘There is just one 
thing that I should like to say, sir/ I remarked to 
the chief. ‘You see, sir, I feel that lam somewhat 
responsible, the seer of this strange vision being my 

sister. X might imagine that Mr. Warrender and 

I had freely talked of the loss of his star, but in truth 
such is not the case. We have never once men- 
tioned it, and I will positively swear that I have not 

once mentioned Mr. X ’s name to any member of 

my family. I have never described him or in any 
way given what might have been the clue to this 
vision. Now, I only wish to ask one thing. It is 
this : of course, Mr. X— — will have no objection to 


88 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


having his quarters and belongings searched by some 
suitable person/ 

“X bounced up like a parched pea on a hot 

shovel,” Tom continued. “ ‘Certainly not, I will 
submit to no such insult/ he blazed out. 

“ ‘Then, of course, we shall have no choice but 
to think that you cannot — that you are afraid to give 
that satisfaction/ 

“ ‘ If you order it to be done, sir, ’ he began, when 
the chief interrupted him gravely and quietly: ‘I 

could not order any such thing, Mr. X / he said, 

‘but as your commanding officer and as your best 
friend in this matter, I strongly advise you to will- 
ingly and cheerfully embrace such an excellent 
chance of satisfying everybody concerned in this 
miserable affair/ 

“ The effect of the chief’s quiet words was almost 
miraculous,” Tom went on. “I never could have 
believed that such a change could have come over 
any man in the course of a few minutes as came 

over X while the colonel was speaking. He 

dropped down on the nearest chair and hid his face 

on his arms. ‘ Mr. X / exclaimed the chief in a 

tone of the utmost surprise, ‘ what is the meaning 
of this ? ' 

“He raised his head at last, and looked wildly at 
us all. ‘ What does it mean ? ’ he cried, ‘ Why, that 
I can’t hold out any longer. I did take Warrender’s 
star. Why ? Oh, why do any of us do crazy things ? 
I don’t know why. Now what are you going to do ? 
To send for the police, or what ? ’ 


THE HAMEL ESS ONE. 


89 


“ ‘Mr. X / said the chief, ‘I am not going- to 

send for the police. I am going to do nothing which 
will in any way let this disgraceful story creep out 
beyond the ears of those who are most nearly con- 
cerned. You will, of course, restore the star to Mr. 
Warren der. ’ 

“ ‘Yes/ answered X sullenly. ‘ Here are my 

keys, you can go and fetch it/ 

“‘Not at all/ put in the colonel sharply, ‘we 
will go and find it together, all of us. Then you will 
hand over to me a suitable sum of money as com- 
pensation for the man who has been lying in the 
cells suspected of your crime. After that you will 
send in your papers and you will leave the service 
without delay. Of course you will not enter the 
mess-rooms again/ 

“Poor beggar,” said Tom quite sympathetically, 
“I give you my word that I was never so sorry for 
any human being in the whole of my life. He 
seemed so crushed and down-trodden. I pitied him 
with all'my heart.” 

“And I,” echoed Mr. Warrender. 

“ He agreed to everything,” Tom continued ; “he 
handed over a tenner for Warrender’s servant, went 
with us to get the star, which had suffered a good 
bit by the change of keepers, for he had punched 
nearly all the stones out and the setting was bent 
here and there and a good deal marked and scratched 
by the pen-knife which he had used for the purpose. 
‘You will pay for having it put right, of course/ said 
the chief, who was perfectly pitiless in his anger 


9 ° 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


and disgust. He had no pity whatever for the chap, 
not a bit of it. — 

“And then we all went back to the orderly-room, 
and we all of us swore that we would never divulge 
a word of what had happened, and then he was told 
that he could go. It was after that,” Tom ended, 
“that I promised that I would not say one single 
word about the matter until I had first got your 
promise to keep absolute silence about it forever.” 

As Tom ceased speaking my father drew a long 
breath. “ H’m, it’s one of the strangest stories I 
ever heard. Heaven be thanked that such a thing 
never happened in my regiment. I don’t believe 
that I should have been half as judicious as your 
chief, on my word I don’t. But, my dear child,” 
turning and laying his hand on mine, “what a 
regular little firebrand you are. We shall have to 
beware of you, my dear. ” 

“Miss Nancy, I wonder if you could find out for 
me where my chestnut mare is — I lost a valuable 
mare about a year ago. Perhaps Miss Nancy could 
give me the clue to that also.” 

He held out his hand to me as he spoke, but my 
father hurriedly made mine a prisoner within his 
own. “No, no, I strongly object to that,” he ex- 
claimed. “I don’t want Nancy to encourage her 
power; it is quite inconvenient enough as it is. 
Besides that, Nancy is but a delicate slip of a girl, 
and the less this sort of thing grows on her the 
better. Remember, Nancy, my precious, that I wish 
you never to experiment in any way.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


‘ ‘ that’s my brother. ” 

What Tom called his “ little scrap of leave ” soon 
came to an end, and then he and Mr. Warrender 
went back to their regiment and we heard no more 
about the affair of the diamond star. .True to our 
trust, we never spoke of it or alluded to it in any 
way, and nobody outside our immediate family 
circle knew that the incident had even taken 
place. 

Several times during the rest of his stay, Mr. 
Warrender tried his best to induce me to try if I 
could not find some clue or trace of the mare which 
had been stolen from him a year previously ; but 
though, after many refusals and reminders that the 
colonel would be exceedingly angry if he knew that 
I had been deliberately experimenting with my 
strange power, I at last let myself be over-persuaded 
and did let him hold my hand for a few minutes, yet 
no vision of any kind came to me and for all the 
trace of a mare that I saw, the young man might 
never have been possessed of any kind of a gee in 
the whole of his life. 

“No, it is evidently no use, Mr. Warrender,’’ I 

9 1 


A SEVENTH CHILE). 


said, as I took my hand away. “What I can see I 
can see, and it is no use trying to force it.” 

“ But you needn’t take your hand away, Nancy,” 
he said reproachfully. “It won’t hurt you to leave 
it for a little while where it was very comfortable. ” 

I laughed outright. “It was not so very comfort- 
able, Mr. Warrender,” I replied. 

“No?” in a deeply hurt tone. “Ah, you’re a 
hard-hearted little soul, Nancy, and I’m a great ass 
to set any value on your good opinion.” 

He got up from the garden seat on which we were 
sitting, and walked away with his hands in his 
pockets, I looking after him ruefully enough. 
“There now, he is vexed because I could not find 
out anything about his stupid mare,” my thoughts 
ran. “ As if I could help it. But there, if he likes 
to upset himself about nothing, he must just be up- 
set. /can’t help it.” 

Mr. Warrender, however, did not seem to be at all 
upset when we met again, and if he was not quite 
as gay and free and easy as usual, very few people 
would have noticed any difference in him. I fancy 
that he avoided me somewhat, but I did not dare to 
ask Eve, for Eve was a bit of a blab and I was afraid 
she might peach to the colonel about my trying to 
see something of the lost mare. So during the few 
days that they were still at the Warren, I had to 
hold my tongue and say nothing. And at last they 
went away and the Warren settled down into its 
prosaic and ordinary ways again. 

“Mrs. Reynard,” Tom’s friend said at parting, 


93 


“ THAT'S MY BROTHER* 

“ I have to thank you for one of the most pleasant 
visits that I ever paid in my life. I hope you will 
ask me again some day/’ 

‘ ‘Why, of course we will,” mother answered in her 
kindest tones, “ more especially when you are so 
easily pleased and satisfied with so very little. I 
never had any one staying in the house who gave 
so little trouble as you have done, Mr. Warrender. 
Come back to us at any time when you have leave 
and want to have a quiet time in the country.” 

But Mr. Warrender never did come back to the 
Warren, and I never saw him again. Leave was 
very difficult to get that summer, for the regiment 
was worked tremendously hard, and when Tom did 
get a few days, he spent them in town and I sup- 
pose his great chum went with him. At all events, 
he did not come to us. They both had their long 
leave the following winter when we were at Cannes, 
which the colonel liked better than any foreign 
town he had ever been in — I believe because he was 
able to gamble a little, a pursuit at which he gener- 
ally contrived to win. We had scarcely got settled 
again at the Warren before Tom sent a telegram 
saying that he was coming home for a few hours 
and would we send a trap to the station to meet 
him ? Of course we did ; indeed the colonel went 
himself to fetch him from the train — I really believe 
because he thought Tom had got into some scrape 
and he could not wait till he reached the house to 
hear what it was. But poor dear Tom had not got 
into a scrape at all, for Tom was a real good boy, 


94 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


though not a bit soppy or anything of that kind. 
No, it was not Tom who had got into a scrape but 
the whole nation, for he brought the news that there 
was what he called “a devil of a shindy out in 
India ” and the 26th had been ordered off at once at 
something like three days’ notice. “I tore up to 
town last night,” Tom told us, “ and ordered as 
much as I could in time — no fancy things you know, 
sir, but just the merest necessaries for a hot climate. 
A good half the fellows are in a pretty corner, for 
the tradespeople don’t see putting themselves out for 
anything but ready money, and very few of us have 
got a fiver to bless ourselves with. However, thank 
goodness, I’m pretty well off just now as it 
happens.” 

The colonel was deeply interested in the “shindy ” 
in the East. “I did hear something about it,” he 
said, “but I expect it’s only an ordinary kind of 
scare. They are always getting them up, and 
then a few of the wise ones have the satisfaction of 
saying, ‘ I told you so,’ though where that particular 
pleasure or satisfaction comes is hard to tell. Still, 
of course, it’s best to be on the safe side and not 
have the mutiny game played over again. I always 
felt that it was such a pity that the troops out 
there did not foregather a little and that we did not 
make ourselves more to the natives socially. 
You know it really is deuced hard for them. The 
conquering race isn’t content to be the conquering 
race, but it makes a point of seeking to ram that 
same fact down the throats of the native races at every 


THAT'S MY BROTHER. 


turn. On my word, it is hard, and I firmly believe 
it is the greatest mistake in all the world. ” 

During this harangue my mother had been staring 
at father with all her eyes. ‘ ‘ Why, Sep ! ” she ex- 
claimed, in tones of the utmost consternation, 
“when did all these new-fangled notions come to 
you? Have you forgotten about Mrs. Ramdejee?” 

My father had the grace to redden perceptibly 
under the calm gaze of mother’s serene eyes. “Yes, 
yes, I know all about that,” he said rather uneasily. 
“But, of course, I thought very differently on those 
matters then ; and even now, when I do see how 
short-sighted our policy has always been, I would 
not go so far as to mix the races in that way. No, 
no, certainly not.” 

“ Tell us about Mrs. Ramdejee,” cried Eve coax- 
ingiy. 

“Oh, it was nothing,” answered the colonel half 
impatiently. 

“Still, we want to know, every one of us,” persisted 
Eve, who was a perfect bull-dog in never letting go 
of an idea when she had once got it. 

“Well, Mrs. Ramdejee was a pretty English girl 
who came out to Lahmoor as governess to some 
children in the 92d,” the colonel began. “And I 
suppose she had a pretty bad time, for Mrs. Lassalle 
was a plain and very jealous little body, with an 
idea that half the fellows in the station were in love 
with her — which they decidedly were not — and she 
was thoroughly disgusted at the governess, who had 
been sent out by her friends, turning out to be so 


9 6 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


very pretty, and in consequence she kept her entirely 
in the background. Eventually, this girl attracted 
the admiration of a young native barrister who had 
been educated in England, and she married him. I 
— I — I well, I objected to your mother knowing 
them or meeting them, and ” 

“But why,” Eve asked in wonder. 

“Oh, well, nobody does, most people do object in 
India,” said the colonel rather lamely, “ and I shared 
the same prejudices as the rest. But now, I feel 
that perhaps I was wrong and if I went out again I 
might feel differently.” 

At this point Tom said something very rude under 
his breath, something about pigs and flying and un- 
likely birds. I think mother heard it, for she laughed 
softly to herself. Mother was quite alive to all 
father’s delightful inconsistencies, though she adored 
him. 

“It does seem most bitterly unjust on the very 
face of it,” the colonel went on, — “for us to treat 
the natives, to whom the soil should by right belong, 
as if they were dirt under our feet ; and yet — - — ” 

“And yet if you were to go back again,” put in 
mother, quietly, “you would do exactly the same 
as you did before,” 

“ I daresay I should,” father admitted. 

“The fact is,” said Tom wisely, “that a fellow 
has to do pretty much what all the other fellows do. 
If it’s the swagger thing to refuse to meet natives 
outside of official houses, every one who is any one 
will go on refusing to meet them. If any one is 


THATS MY BROTHER.' 


97 


strong- enough to set the fashion of making natives 
the fashion, and can do it without the cover of an 
official position, why then the custom of refusing to 
meet them will drop out.” 

“ My dear lad,” said the colonel, “ you’ve put the 
case in a nutshell.” 

Tom’s few hours of leave were soon over, and 
equally soon the wrench of parting was over. It 
was a wrench, although our boys had been away 
from home for years, and being a military family, we 
were all of us accustomed to think little or nothing 
of saying good-bye. Still, for all that, it was a 
wrench, for Tom, who was the dearest fellow in the 
world, was the first of all us youngsters who had 
said good-bye before taking so long a journey ; and 
besides that there was trouble in the air, and we did 
not know to what danger and hardship he might be 
going. Of course, it might turn out to be a mere 
nothing, and we all hoped and prayed that it would 
do so. But, as the colonel said, when thousands of 
natives all through a district take to breaking their 
cake in a different way to that in which they have 
broken it from time immemorial, why it generally 
means something, and anything that means some- 
thing in India usually means something unpleasant. 

Thus we watched Tom’s progress with the gravest 
anxiety, far more so indeed then we should have 
done at any ordinary time. It followed the usual 
course of soldiers on their way out to the gorgeous 
East. We heard from Gibraltar, from Malta, Suez, 
Aden, and then from Bombay. 

7 


9 8 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


Tom himself was not at all concerned about the 
future. He wrote in the very best of spirits and his 
letters were for him laboriously long, that is to say 
he managed to fill three sides of the large thin paper 
on which he wrote. Among other items of informa- 
tion he told us that he had got all his things before 
sailing, that he had never felt a single qualm, and 
that his friend Warrender had been in his berth all 
the way to Gibraltar and even part of the way to 
Malta. “ Poor old chap ! ” Tom wrote, “ when he 
did get up on deck, he looked like a ghost, and he 
was so fearfully weak that he could scarcely stagger 
across the saloon. I don't know,” he added, “how 
the poor old chap is going to stand a hot climate.” 

By the time the 26th reached Bombay the scare 
about the specially broken cakes was quite at an 
end, and, as Tom said, they might just as well have 
been given time to get suitable clothing and neces- 
saries, instead of being bundled out of England with 
scarcely an extra set of shirts among them. “ How- 
ever,” Tom wrote cheerfully, “on the whole, most 
of the fellows have a great deal to be thankful for. 
Half of them were in a blue funk about their bills, 
not knowing how they would get out of England 
without being arrested for debt. As it is, they all 
slipped away very neatly, and no possible blame to 
them. And as the regiment won’t be back for ten 
years, it’s a bad look-out for the tailors.” 

After all, I don’t suppose that all the officers of 
the 26th put together owed such a lot of money, and 
probably they had spent so much during the pre- 


“ THAT'S MY BROTHER: 


99 


vious ten years that the tradesmen would not care 
very much whether they lost what was owing or 
not. Tom, who did not owe any bills, continued to 
write home most cheerfully, only his letters grew 
shorter and shorter, and with every one more like the 
letters he had written from school, from Sandhurst 
and from his regiment. 

They had been out about six months when I 
gathered some news which Tom never meant us to 
know. It happened that mother and I were sitting 
working together, when we heard the double knock 
of the postman. I ran out and fetched the letters 
from the box. 

“Three for the colonel,” I remarked. “Two for 
Eve and one for you. One from Tom.” 

“Read it to me, dear,” said mother, who was 
nursing a bad cold and had neuralgia, on account 
of which she was sitting very near to the fire with 
her head wrapped up in a fine w'hite Shetland 
shawl. 

“ It’s the usual half sheet,” I said with a laugh ; 

then began to read. “My dear Mother ” and 

then a sort of mist came over me and I said 

“ Stop ! You’re not to do that. That’s my brother 

oh — oh — Tom, wake up, wake up, he is going 

to kill you. Tom ! Tom ! ” 

I was conscious of mother’s voice speaking in 
very decided accents. 

“Nancy, what is it? Nancy, speak ! ” 

I saw distinctly a room with high white walls and 
with very little furniture. The principal thing was 


oo 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


a bed which stood almost in the middle of the room 
and which was hung with white curtains all round. 

They were very thin and you could see through 
them. There was a chair or two and a dressing- 
table set out with all the brushes and toilet things 
that a man uses, and at one side was a photograph 
of mother in a smart silver frame. The floor was 
covered with matting and a big dog was lying near 
the bed. As I was watching I saw a man, a native, 
in white clothing, come stealthily into the room and 
go towards the dog, which raised its head and 
growled at him, just lifting its heavy lip so as to 
show its teeth. The man had a cloth in his hand, 
apparently a damp cloth, and this by a dexterous 
movement he flung over the dog’s head and threw 
himself upon him. In a minute or so the great 
brown animal ceased to struggle, and then the man 
moved softly towards the bed and gently drew the 
curtain aside. To my horror I saw that he had a 
knife in his hand and I then shrieked out aloud — 
“No, no, you mustn’t do it. That’s Tom ! Tom ! 
Oh, do wake up ! Ah — h, he has struck him ! Oh, 
coward ! coward !”. — and then I hid my face in mv 
hands and burst into a storm of passionate tears. 


CHAPTER IX. 

A GHASTLY STORY. 

When I came round to myself again, mother was 
standing by me, her arm round me and her head 
pressed hard against mine. No, I do not mean that 
I fainted, but my grief was uncontrollable and I was 
almost in hysterics. 

“ My dear, my dear, what was it? What did you 
see ? ” she cried, holding me fast. 

“Oh, mother,” I gasped — I was shivering with 
what I had seen, but I contrived to repeat it all to 
her. She heard me to the end, her face growing 
whiter with every moment. 

“My child,” she said in a shaking voice, “do 
you think that, by any chance, you can have been 
deceived? You have not been very well, and for 
some time past we have been anxious about our 
dear boy ; do you think it possible that your nerves 
or senses have played you false and that your 
strange power has gone a little astray ? ” 

“I don’t know, mother,” I replied, “ it all seemed 
so horribly real, and I saw the man raise the knife — 
oh,” and then I broke off, shuddering again. 

My mother put Tom’s letter into my hand again. 

IOI 


102 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


“ I know that your father does not wish you to 
make experiments with this power of yours, but 
this is a time when you may fairly try your utmost 
to find out the truth. Hold the letter again and try 
to see what happened after the man struck Tom.” 

I obeyed at once, but though I tried with might 
and main, with all my heart and soul, to see what 
else had happened to our dear boy, my mind re- 
mained perfectly blank and not the slightest trace of 
a vision came to illumine the darkness which what 
I had seen had cast over us. 

We were still sitting in the firelit room when the 
colonel and my two sisters came in. Geoffrey 
Dagenham had gone up to town for a few days on 
business, and Madge was spending a few days at 
home. They had all been to an afternoon party in 
Minchester, and came in laughing and chatting gayly 
together. 

“Well, my love/’ said the colonel as he opened 
the door, “ and how is the cold ? Any better ? ” 

“Sep!” said mother — just that one word. But 
father understood — he always did understand 
mother ; he could read her like a book. 

He caught hold of her. “ What is it ? ” he asked. 
Then he perceived the letters lying on the table and, 
recognizing Tom’s handwriting, he stretched out his 
hand and picked his up. 

Mother found her voice. “That’s nothing,” she 
said ; “it is quite an ordinary letter ; but Nancy was 
reading it and she has seen something. Oh, Sep, 
Sep ! My boy, my dear boy S ” 


A GHASTLY STORY. 


103 

I scarcely know how we managed to tell him all 
that I had seen, but we did it somehow. He sat 
like a man turned to stone for a few minutes, while 
Eve, who was excessively fond of Tom, hid her face 
against the chimney-shelf, and Madge broke out 
into bitter weeping. 

“Oh, Nannie, Nannie,” she cried, “ are you quite 
sure that it was Tom you saw ? Could it have been 
any one else ? ” 

“It was Tom,” I answered. “I saw him dis- 
tinctly.” 

“ You don’t think that you’ve been dwelling on 
him lately, and so your mind has played you tricks ? ” 

She was crying bitterly, and could scarcely frame 
the words for her sobs, 

“ My dear Madge,” I replied, “I have not been 
thinking any more of Tom than usual. I only 
told what I saw ; I didn’t want to see it — why 
should I ! ” 

There was a moment’s silence and then my sister 
gave a long sigh. “Nancy is always right in what 
she sees,” she said, hopelessly. 

At this point the colonel looked up and spoke to 
mother. “ Blanche, ” he said, “I shall go into the 
town at once and wire out to Le Merchant. We 
cannot go on in this suspense until we hear in the 
ordinary way.” 

“Oh, Sep, if you only will,” mother cried in 
despairing tones. 

He went to her writing-table and wrote out the 
telegram. “I think this will do,” he said — “ Le 


1 04 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


Merchant, 26th Hussars, Sialkote, India. Is my 
son well? — Reynard.” 

“Yes,” said mother anxiously. “Then we shall 
know the w’orst at once. Nancy has tried and tried 
and she can see nothing else.” 

I scarcely know how we all lived until we got 
the answer back again, and even when it did come, 
not one of us liked the task of opening it. No, I 
don’t mean to say that we wasted time in deciding 
who would do so, but certainly we all dreaded what 
the slip of paper might contain. It was father who 
broke the envelope and first saw the news it brought. 

“ God be thanked, it is all right,” he said. “Le 
Merchant only sends one word — ‘.Well.’ 'What a 
relief ! Nancy, thank Heaven your sight was at 
fault for once.” 

I thanked Heaven too — we all did ; and my 
people mercifully forbore to tease me about my mis- 
taken vision, and so the autumn weather went on 
and every day brought us nearer and nearer to our 
move to the fair shores of the Mediterranean. And 
then when three weeks had gone by there came an- 
other letter from Tom which put the whole matter 
in a different light. I do not mean that Tom had 
not written between this letter and that one which 
had caused my vision, for we had had a letter the 
very week previously. But this letter was in answer 
to the telegram. 

“ I perceive,” Tom began, “ that Nancy has been 
at it again. When I tried, and unsuccessfully, to 


A G//AS TLY S TOR Y. 


io 5 

keep a certain incident from you, I had forgotten 
that time and distance make no difference to Nancy. 
As a matter of fact, something has happened to me, 
something very unpleasant. I tried to keep it from 
you, as I did not want any of you to imagine that 
my life is cast among dangers, and that I was to be 
worried about continually. I dare say you all know 
pretty well the truth of what befell me about the 
time I wrote the last but one. But in case Nancy’s 
sight has not been very complete, I will give 
you the details. I went to bed one night as usual, 
leaving my dog — one I doubt if I ever mentioned to 
you, a big brown fellow standing nearly three feet 
at the shoulder — loose in my room. 1 woke up with 
a sharp stinging pain in my neck and to hear the 
most awful sounds of growling, struggling and 
snarling mingled with the most appalling yells and 
shrieks that it has ever been my lot to listen too. I 
thought at first that I had been bitten by a snake, 
though I have never seen so much as the tail of a 
snake since I landed in India. Some of our serv- 
ants — I think I told you that there are four of us liv- 
ing together here — came running in bringing in lights. 
I then saw that Roger, that’s the dog’s name, 
had got a native down on the floor and was worry- 
ing him fiercely. None of the servants dared inter- 
fere and I felt so queer that I could scarcely stand 
upright. As the lights fell upon me I saw that I was 
streaming with blood, which was running from a 
wound in my neck all down my blue cotton pyjamas. 
I heard my bearer tell one of the others to fetch the 


106 A SEVENTH CHILD. 

doctor, who is one of the four living in this bunga- 
low, and then my head began to swim round and 
round and I was only conscious that my bearer was 
holding me up and that another was holding a glass 
to my lips, And all the time the horrid growling 
and snarling went on, while the yells got fainter 
and more choked every minute. I don’t know what 
the doctor did, but by and by I came to myself a 
bit, and then the chap on the floor was quite quiet 
and Roger was worrying him and playing with him 
like a cat plays with a rat. 

‘ ‘ ‘ Who’s that ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘Sahib, we don’t know,’ my bearer answered. 

‘ We dare not go near the dog. He has tasted blood, 
and is as savage as a tiger.’ 

“ ‘Pooh! the dog’s all right. If the beggar had 
left me alone, he would never have touched him. 
Here, Roger, old chap, what’s up ? ’ 

“As I expected, the dog, who is a spendid fellow 
and perfectly devoted to me, turned his head at the 
sound of my voice. He thumped his great tail on 
the floor and then set to work and worried the man 
afresh. One of the servants picked up the knife 
which was still wet with my blood. And then Ten- 
nent, that’s the doctor, picked up a towel which was 
lying on the floor a little way off and exclaimed in a 
sharp tone — ‘By Jove, this is saturated with chloro- 
form — I smelt it before I got into the room. I be- 
lieve it’s been used to still the dog. Reynard, just 
see if you can get Roger away, will you ? We can’t 
have this mangling going on any longer.’ 


A GHASTLY STORY. 


107 


“Tennent had roughly bound up my neck with a 
couple of towels, and with his help, I got hold of Roger 
and with a little coaxing I persuaded him to come 
away and to let the servants carry the body into the 
adjoining room — for the chap was as dead as a door- 
nail, a sight such as I never want to see again. Ten- 
nent just touched the dog’s head — ‘ Yes, as I thought, 
that towel has been used to quiet him, and the fel- 
low was in too great a hurry ; he should have waited 
till the chloroform had had time to do its work ef- 
fectually. Well, old chap,’ he ended, ‘you’ve been 
a good friend to old Roger, who belonged to a regu- 
lar brute before you, who used to knock him about 
for the mere pleasure of seeing him suffer and hear- 
ing him howl. But, by Jove, he has repaid his debt 
with interest. If it hadn’t been for him, you’d have 
been as dead as a herring by this time. ’ 

“ And that,” the letter went on, “ is just about the 
truth. And the queerest part of it all is that we can’t 
get any clue to the mystery. Why this native chap 
should have picked me out of all others is incompre- 
hensible. I have no valuables, and if I had it would 
have been easy enough to make away with them 
without murdering me over it. I can have made no 
enemies, for I haven’t dismissed a single servant since 
I came out and am thoroughly satisfied with every- 
body that I have. I’ve been very careful — bearing 
in mind what young asses fellows are who first 
come out here and that there has been disaffection 
in the district — not to tread on any one’s corns, and 


108 A SEVENTH CHILD. 

in fact, I feel that I really have not deserved this sort 
of reward. 

“ Of course the chap was dead when we got him 
away from Roger, which saved the trouble and ex- 
pense of a trial and a hanging, which would have 
been the inevitable result if Roger had spared 
him. And I have been quite the hero of Sialkote, 
which is very embarrassing to a modest mind like 
mine. 

“The only trace of a clue that we found was a 
paper which was discovered in the man’s turban. 
This is evidently a sort of letter written in cipher, 
and with the permission of the colonel I am sending 
it for Nancy to see. It was indeed by his suggestion; 
for he thinks that as she found out all about War- 
renders diamond-star and has evidently got some 
inkling of this affair, she might be able to trace out 
this particular piece of villainy. Here in this un- 
certain land it is most essential that no stone should 
be left unturned which will help to expose underhand 
work like this. I must not forget to tell you that I 
was really very ill for several weeks after that night. 
I managed to scrawl a few lines, as I did not wish 
you to be uneasy, and I remembered that two mails 
had gone by without my writing. I suffered a great 
deal of pain and a good deal from fever, and I be- 
lieve both Tennent and Bob Warrender were des- 
perately anxious about me for a couple of weeks. 
However, I am all right now, though a bit pulled 
down. Old Roger is quite a celebrity and has par- 
ties given for him. Think of it ! He carries his lion- 


a Ghastly story. 


109 

ors very meekly and sets a fine example to many 
human persons I know/’ 

Nobody spoke for a moment — then Eve said, 
“ Here is the mysterious paper, Nancy.” 


CHAPTER X. 


THE MYSTERIOUS PAPER. 

I suppose with many people the first instinct on 
hearing such a ghastly story as we had just received 
from my brother Tom, would have been to say, “Ah, 
ah, I told you so.” But I had no such inclination. 
You see, we were all thoroughly filled with horror 
and consternation, and no thought of self came to us. 
And only too gladly would I have hailed the certain 
information that my strange power had been at 
fault ; for this story of Tom’s proved surely that my 
gift was in truth a terribly reliable one, and that in 
future what visions I might see would be real, would 
be true. Indeed I would much rather have had 
the comfort of holding this power somewhat in 
uncertainty. 

When my sister Eve held out the mysterious paper 
to me I half hesitated to take it. I do not think 
that I ever had such intense repugnance to inquire 
into the dim recesses of mystery in all my life before. 
At last, however, I did take it, though my nervous 
fingers closed over it almost as if they were afraid 
that it might burn them. 

For a moment there was profound silence, as the 

IIO 


THE MYSTERIOUS RARER. 


HI 


others sat watching me with breathless interest. 
Then the scene gradually faded away and another 
scene came in its place. 

“ Do you see anything ? ” I heard my mother ask. 

“ I see a room that I have seen befpre,” I replied, 
“ it is a rather bare room with a soldier’s belongings 
thrown about ; it is the same room that I saw once 
— I cannot remember where. Yet I have seen it — 
I’ve seen it — it is Mr. Warrender’s room in Danford 
Barracks. Yes, it is the same room — there is no- 
body in it.” 

‘‘Try again,” said the colonel, eagerly. “ Remem- 
ber how much is hanging upon it.” 

“Yes, try — for dear old Tom’s sake,” put in Eve. 
Eve adored Tom. 

“Don't talk to me — you disturb me, ” I said im- 
patiently. “There is something, but I can't get 
hold of it. Give me time to breathe.” 

They stayed as quiet as mice for a little time, and 
I held the paper tightly between my hands and tried 
to fix my mind on the influence which had dictated 
it. Again and again I went back to the room in 
Danford Barracks, and at last I became conscious 
that my mind was travelling elsewhere. Slowly, 
very slowly, a new scene spread itself out before 
my mental vision — a scene which was wholly new 
and strange to me. I saw it quite plainly, as plainly 
as if it had been drawn in a picture. 

“ I see a very large room with a pointed roof — it 
is lighted by lamps hanging, by long chains, from 
the ceiling, or rather the rafters. A man is sitting in 


1 1 2 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


a chair by the table ; it is a large easy chair, and 
I can only see the back of his head. It is a dark 
head, but not native. The town is called Burwarra 
— Burwarra, or some such name. And the house is 
— is — oh, what is it ? Such a queer name — Tamil, 
or something like that. Nothing is very clear, ex- 
cept the figure of the man who is sitting with his 
back to me. He is reading — and now a native serv- 
ant comes in — he goes near to the table and says 
something to the man — and the man answers with 
a nod and a wave of his hand. The native servant 
is going out — and now he comes back, followed by 
another native — ah — h, it’s the man that stabbed 
Tom, the man I saw in Tom’s room.” 

I began to feel very sick and faint, but the others 
begged me not to give way,* but to follow the scene 
to the end, and so I made a great effort and shook 
myself together again that I might see what was to 
come. Very soon my mind seemed to clear and the 
whole scene came back to me. I see them talking 
together, they are quite near together, but not in an 
intimate way, for the native cringes the whole time. 
The man with the brown hair seems to be laying 
down the law very emphatically, and the native bows 
and cringes and spreads out his hand in a deprecating 
way, as if to express that the other has but to com- 
mand for him to obey. Money passes between 
them and then the man shows the native a sheet of 
paper and seems to be explaining something to him. 
At first the native seems to be puzzled, but now lie 
smiles and nods a great many times as if to chow 


THE MYSTERIOUS PAPER. 


n 3 

that he understands the meaning of the other. Now 
the native is taking leave, he bows, and puts the 
palms of his hands together and bows again, then 
goes back a step or two and bows again. At last 
he has got himself out of the room and the man is 
alone. ” 

“Cannot you describe the man? ” the colonel 
asked. 

“ No, he has his back turned toward me and has 
never once looked round. I feel that I should know 
him if he were to look round. He is familiar to me, 
and yet I feel that I have never seen him before. 
He is thinking, thinking deeply. Now he leans 
his head upon his hand, and although I cannot 
see his face yet his heart seems to be full of bitter- 
ness. ” 

At this point the whole room faded out into a 
dense white mist and I fancy I slipped off into a 
semi-unconsciousness; presently, however, it cleared 
away and a new picture came in its stead. “ I see 
a different place, not a room this time, but a sort of 
garden. There is a small grove of trees and a door- 
way, it looks like the doorway into a very small 
house of only one story. I see the same man, the 
native who stabbed Tom, he has a paper in his hand 
and he reads it by the fading light. It grows dark all 
in a minute, but the native stays there without mov- 
ing, as if he were thinking of something. I can still 
see him, though it is so dark, for the light from the 
small house streams through the doorway, and 
casts a glow over his white-clothed figure. Pres- 

s 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


114 

ently he takes a packet from his waistband, it is 
wrapped in soft paper, and now he opens it. Money 
— yes, it is money, all in silver, there are a great 
many silver pieces, like half-crowns, he counts them 
over and over and looks like a wolf. And then he 
draws out his knife — oh, it is the same knife that he 
stabbed Tom with, it makes me sick, I cannot see 
any more, it is all gone. ” 

I came back to the pleasant room at the Warren 
with a great shuddering sigh— “Oh, don’t ask 
me to try again!” I cried, “I am done for to- 
day.” 

Mother went and fetched me a glass of strong old 
port and made me drink it before any of them spoke 
a word to me. I was completely exhausted by my 
efforts and, after all, I had found out nothing, or 
what seemed like nothing. However, the colonel 
wrote out to Tom and told him what I had seen, 
and then we had nothing to do but to await the mail 
which would bring his reply. 

In due time that came, and after telling us that he 
was really quite himself again, Tom told us all 
that had transpired after the receipt of father’s 
letter. . 

“ The odd thing is,” he wrote, “ that Nancy seems 
to be always right even when she thinks she isn’t. 
It turns out now that the beggar who tried to do for 
me, and very nearly did too, is a native ofBurwarra 
and came here for the amiable purpose of cooking 
my goose, straight from there, Burwarra is a rather 


THE MYSTERIOUS PAPER. 


XI 5 

small station about thirty miles from here, and Tamil 
is the name of that part of the place where a few 
good bungalows are situated. We thoroughly inves- 
tigated — at least the police did — the whole of the 
Tamil and at last discovered the very bungalow 
which Nancy describes. It is the only one lighted 
by lamps suspended by hanging chains. As far as 
we can make out, the only person answering to the 
description Nancy gives was a Mr. George Smith, 
who stayed at this bungalow for a few weeks and 
gave out that he was travelling in India forqdeasure, 
and not feeling very well, he wished to take a house 
to himself for a little while, in order to get more 
quiet than he could in a hotel. • Seems to me,” Tom 
added, “that Mr. George Smith meant to insure me 
a good spell of peace and quiet, a spell of peace and 
quiet for which I have no particular fancy just at 
present. However,” he wound up, “it amounts to 
this, that, be that as it may, the beggar who was to 
do the deed got served out badly enough, and Mr. 
George Smith isn’t likely to try that sort of thing 
on again with me. If he does he will find me ready 
for him. I sleep with a revolver under my pillow 
and I have got another big dog, so that any chance 
of settling me is very remote. Don't worry about 
me, dear mother, and tell the others that I shall turn 
up again like the proverbial bad shilling.” 

So we were obliged to let the affair rest and, to tell 
the truth, I was very thankful to do so. Of course, 
I could not have refused to do anything which 


6 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


would in any way protect my brother, but my 
horror of seeing that which would eventually bring 
some poor wretch to the gallows was very great. 
I felt as if I never should have got over it, if such a 
responsibility had come into my life. 

Soon after this I was introduced into such society as 
there was to be introduced to. Mother gave a dance 
and then Madge gave another, and several friends 
who had daughters of about my age, did the same, 
so that we really had quite an unusually gay winter. 
I was now turned eighteen, a tall slip of a girl, not 
exactly good-looking,but certainly not ugly. I danced 
to perfection, and every one said that I had a knack of 
wearing my clothes well, which to a girl is of course 
a very great advantage. This was the first winter since 
I was ten years old that we had not spent on the 
Riviera, and it was with some misgivings that mother 
consented to our trying whether I could stand a 
winter in England. As a matter of fact I was won- 
derfully well, and I enjoyed the frost and snow 
immensely. Of course I was looked after very 
closely, and old nurse, who was still with us, followed 
me round with all kinds of precautions, which I 
looked upon as both silly and faddy. 

About this time, Madge went and had a baby. 
She and Geoffrey had been married just over seven 
years, and really they had got on splendidly and 
had never so much as hinted that babies entered 
into their scheme of happiness at all. And then 
this little squalling youngster made his appearance, 
and everything at Dagenham was changed, and 


THE MYSTERIOUS EATER. 


117 

neither the house nor its master and mistress ever 
were the same again. I really did think that it 
was weak of Madge, and — in a good moment be it 
spoken — it was the very horridest baby I had ever 
seen. I wouldn’t have taken it in my arms for all 
the world, for it squalled and fought and swore at 
every one who came near it — yes, swore, quite plainly, 
though it could not speak a single word in any 
ordinary language. 

And the fuss that Madge made about that nasty 
little thing was really foolish. She passed her 
whole time spooning over it and talking gibberish 
to it, till it got so pampered that it scarcely knew 
itself. 

And nine days out of ten that baby stopped every 
plan that its fond and foolish parents had made. 
If mother gave a dinner-party, it was a thousand 
chances to one that a little note would come down, 
“Darling Mother, — My precious isn’t very well, so 
I am afraid you must excuse me to-night. Geoffrey 
will come. I hope it won’t upset your table.” 

It always did upset our table, which held fourteen 
comfortably. And of course it is very difficult to 
get somebody just at the last moment, because 
whoever you ask to fill a gap, and no matter how 
intimately you may know them, they always think 
that you might have asked them with the first 
lot. So at last mother made a rule of never 
asking more than twelve when she asked Madge 
and Geoffrey, and that plan certainly worked much 
better. 


i8 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


I asked Madge one day — when she had thrown 
mother over the previous evening and we had not 
been able to get a fourteenth, which ended in my 
not coming down to dinner although I had espe- 
cially wanted to do so — what had been the matter 
with the baby ? 

“Oh, poor darling, he was so ill,” Madge cried, 
with an air as if the child had had convulsions at 
least — “a great horrid rash came out on his dear 
little neck, and his mother wouldn’t leave him, 
would she ? ” and then she poured out such a flood 
of gibberish at that blob-nosed infant that I, remem- 
bering my spoiled dinner-party the previous even- 
ing, could cheerfully have shaken her. 

“But don’t all babies have spots sometimes?” I 
asked. “Was nurse at all frightened about it?” 

“Oh, nurse was quite hard-hearted, as I told her,” 
my sister replied. “She wouldn’t have it that it 
ailed anything, but mother knew what was worrying 
it, didn’t she, ducksie ? ” 

I nearly died of sheer disgust. “ Well, look here, 
Madge, I am going to say something very straight 
to you. I’m sure I hope you won’t be offended, 
because that is not my intention, I can assure you. 
But I do wish when you make up your mind at the 
last moment that you are going to throw mother’s 
dinner over, that you would make up your mind on 
another point as well and make Geoffrey stay at 
home with you. You know as well as I do that our 
table holds fourteen, and that our number is four- 
teen, and when you don’t come and Geoffrey does, 


THE MYSTERIOUS RARER . 


119 


it makes thirteen, which is a very unlucky number. 
Last night I had to stay away from dinner, and all 
because you chose to fancy that wonderful baby 
ailed something. What's the good of having a first- 
class nurse if you can’t stir away for a couple of 
hours? You could have gone home as soon as din- 
ner was over if you were uneasy, and somebody 
could have come down every half hour to let you 
know if it was really ill.” 

But what was the good of talking. Madge was 
offended, though I hardly like to ask you to believe 
it. Yes, she was ; and she gathered that ridiculous 
baby away from the contamination of my presence, 
as if she thought I had the evil eye and that I 
might bewitch it. Really I never saw any one so 
spoilt as my sister Madge was by that wretched 
baby. However, after all, my plain speaking did 
do some good, for she never played us that same 
trick again, although mother took the precaution 
of only asking twelve when they were coming for 
quite a long time. 

And Eve loved the thing. She was always going 
over to Dagenham, as she put it “to have a real 
long, lovely day with the boy.” Yes, she even 
called it a boy — the boy — as if it had been quite 
a beautiful child. More than once, Eve upbraided 
me for not taking more notice of it. “I don’t 
know how you can be so unkind to Madge’s boy, 
Nancy,” she said to me one day. 

“I’m not unkind to it — I was never unkind to 
anything in my life,” I replied, indignantly. 


120 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ Why, you never take a bit of notice of it ! ” she 
exclaimed — “ the only child in the family too.” 

“ My dear Eve,” I returned, with a laugh, “ you 
make fuss enough about the youngster for a dozen 
people. Pray, don’t expect me to do the same, 
because I don’t think I ever shall.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

THAT BABY J 

My sister Eve was godmother to the Dagenham 
baby, and the baby was called Reginald de Courcy. 
It was a strange thing, but as time went on, the 
baby seemed to get more and more peevish and dis- 
agreeable instead of improving, as is the habit of 
most babies. I have known babies which started 
with the most peevish and cranky dispositions and 
which, as the necessary periods of teething and wind 
have gone by, have been transformed into the most 
smiling and delightful creatures, and in due course 
of time developed into specimens which were used 
for advertising certain firms existing for the purpose 
of supplying infants with divers sorts of food. But 
Reginald de Courcy, although I am sure he was fed 
upon every kind of food that has ever been invented 
for infants, did not thrive on any of them. As 
every day went, so did that baby get crosser and 
Grosser and his parents more and more demented 
about it — or if not his parents, certainly his mother 
did. 

My mother was very amusing when she got into 

121 


122 


A SEVEN 77/ CHILD. 


conversation about the little heir to Dagenham. 
“Yes, Madge’s baby is nine months old now,” I 
heard her say one day to an inquiring caller — “ I’m 
sure I don’t know what to think about him. lie is 
quite unlike any baby / ever had. I begin to think 
they try too many foods for him, poor little fellow. 
You see, my dear Mrs. Farquhar, I always nursed 
my babies, and although the new-fangled ways say 
that a child must be artificially fed and that it is 
much easier to feed so, yet I don’t see that the 
babies of to-day are any gainers by the change. 
Now, Madge’s boy is always grizzling, and Madge 
is always in a fever about him. I am sure if she 
were to let the head nurse — who would be a most 
experienced woman and who can have next to 
nothing to do, as Madge gives her an under-nurse 
— if only Madge would let her have a free hand and 
manage the child by herself I feel that he would 
have abetter chance all round. But Madge is very 
self-willed about it and thinks that nobody really 
understands the child but herself.' The result is that 
the nurse does not do her best and the poor child is 
the one to suffer.” 

“I was calling on Mrs. Dagenham the other day,” 
Mrs. Farquhar replied, “and she had the little thing 
brought down for me to see. Do you know it made 
me quite sad to see it. Such a little weazened 
creature ! I feel sure that there is something very 
seriously wrong in its management.” 

“I have said everything that can be said, ” said 
mother, mildly. “ I am very sorry for the poor child. 


THAT BABY! 


123 


but, of course, Madge is his mother and must do what 
she thinks is best for it.” 

A few weeks after this, I happened to be lunching 
with Madge at Dagenham, Eve and I, that is to say. 
She had the boy at the table and fed it with gravy 
and potatoes, and every now and then with little 
bits of chicken from her own plate. Now I had 
never pretended to take any interest in the child ; 
I had always thought it a horrid little creature and 
believed that its advent was a great error of judg- 
ment on the part of its deluded parents. But at the 
same time I would not have done the child the very 
smallest harm, poor little thing ; no, I pitied it too 
much for that. 

“I didn’t know you gave a baby meat, Madge,” 
I remarked. 

“I don’t give him meat,” she replied, ever so 
sharply. 

“ A scrap like that helps the teeth, Miss Nancy,” 
put in the head-nurse, who was standing behind the 
little heir’s high chair. 

Well, I did not know anything about the upbring- 
ing of babies, so I did not say anything in reply. 
But a few minutes afterwards, I caught that woman 
looking at me in such a furtive and sly sort of way 
that I felt instinctively she was up to no good. She 
took the boy away presently, for his afternoon sleep, 
as she said, and we three went into the long, low 
drawing-room and sat by the fire talking. That is 
to say, Madge and Eve talked — chiefly about that 
blessed baby — and I sat by only joining in now and 


124 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 

again and with the new and odd sensation that every 
remark I made was more or less unwelcome to my 
hostess-sister. 

“ Did you try that new food ? ” Eve asked, when 
we had been chatting for half an hour or so. 

“Lady Margaret’s food?” said Madge. “Well, 
yes, we did, but it did not do at all. And nurse said 
that she was sure it was quite impossible to insure 
its being always exactly the same, on account of the 
cream being richer one day than another, while the 
least interruption might spoil the whole of the day’s 
portion.” 

“I suppose it is very troublesome to make,” I 
remarked. 

“Oh, yes, a dreadful trouble to make,” my sister 
answered. 

“Perhaps your treasure of a nurse does not like 
trouble,” I suggested. 

After all, there was nothing in the remark which 
need have made Madge fly out at me as she did. 
“ Really, Nancy,” she burst out, “one would think 
that Hobson wanted to do the boy an injury by the 
hints you always throw out about her. . Of course, 
as she says, any one can see that you don’t like her, 
but you are not going to prejudice me against her. 
I know too well when I have got a valuable servant 
to take any notice.” 

“My dear Madge,” I said coolly, “ I never said a 
word against Hobson — why should I ? It is nothing 
to me whether your child thrives or not. Lady 
Margaret brought up all her delicate children on 


That baby! 


125 


that food, and it is a trouble to make. It is a per- 
fectly natural suggestion that the trouble of making 
prevents the nurse from taking to it for the child. 
It seems to me that, for the good of your boy, the 
sooner you get rid of the valuable Hobson the better. 
She’s a bad lot, that woman.” 

“Oh, Hobson knows you hate her,” remarked my 
sister, with an air of superb disdain. 

“ I neither hate her nor the reverse — I would be 
very sorry to do so,” I said, feeling a little indignant 
that my own sister should have lowered herself so 
far as to listen to any remarks of a servant against 
one of her own family. “But of Hobsons bona 
fides I am more than doubtful. Anyway, common 
sense must tell you that it cannot be a proper thing 
for a child to be as your boy is.” 

“Oh, what do you know about babies?” de- 
manded my sister. 

“ Nothing at all, except that your baby is not 
being done by as it ought to be. I should greatly 
like to inquire into the good Hobson’s by-gone 
history.” 

“ That is quite above reproach,” said Madge, who 
was now really angry — and oh, how she was 
changed from the Madge that used to be ! “ How- 

ever, as I value Hobson more than words can ex- 
press, and as I believe your suspicions to be wholly 
unfounded, I will satisfy you on that point. I got 
her from Lady Marchmont, with whom she lived 
five years, and from whom I had a most excellent 
character. ” 


126 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


This of course I knew, but as we had been in the 
south of France when Hobson had been engaged, 
I did not know the exact details of the transaction. 
“ Did you see Lady Marchmont yourself?” I asked. 
Somehow, I did not in the least care whether Madge 
was vexed or not. 

" I wrote to her and have the letter which I 
received in reply yet,” said Madge, in a decidedly 
huffed tone. 

She got up as she spoke and opening a drawer in 
her writing-table took out a packet of letters and 
selecting one therefrom handed it to me. “ There 
it is,” she said. “ Now you can judge for your- 
self.” 

According to Lady Marchmont’s letter, Hobson 
was indeed a treasure, and the writer had evidently 
been quite sincere in what she had said. 

“ Lady Marchmont is that fair, pretty young 
woman whose photographs one sees about in the 
shop windows, isn’t she ? ” I asked. 

“ Yes, she is fair and very pretty,” Madge replied. 

“ Well, Madge, this letter gives me the- impression 
of a stout woman, a good deal older than your 
Hobson. Your Hobson is dark and thin — Lady 
Marchmont’s Hobson, unless I am very much mis- 
taken, was fairish and decidedly stout, a very good- 
tempered person and passionately fond of children. 
I am afraid you have been taken in, my dear, very 
much afraid.” 

Really, I never saw Madge in such a boiling rage 
in all my life. Indeed, up to the time of her 


THAT BABY! 


127 


marriage, I never had seen her in any kind of a 
rage at all, for Madge had always been the embodi- 
ment of light and sweetness. Now, however, she 
was just boiling over, and she could scarcely contain 
herself for anger. “Nancy, you let your tongue 
run away with your wit,” she said at last, in a 
shaking voice. “ If Geoffrey hears of this he will 
be very angry.” 

“ No, no ! Geoffrey does not like Hobson any 
better than I do,” I put in, calmly. 

The anger all died out of my sister’s face. “ How 
do you know that ? ” she asked, and she looked 
positively frightened. 

“ Madge, dear, I’ve made you very angry,” I 
said, gently. “But, believe me, there is something 
wrong about Hobson, and vour child is paying the 
penalty, whatever it is. That woman is not the 
woman whom Lady Marchmont recommended to 
you, and as for what you say about my hating her, 
why, it is sheer foolishness. You know perfectly 
well that I could have no reason for anything of the 
sort. I daresay she hates me like poison— she is so 
afraid of my finding her out.” 

“ Finding her out ! ” repeated Madge. 

“ Yes, impostors are always afraid of clairvoyantes 
— it is instinct with them, nothing more.” 

“ I hear her — she is bringing the boy,” said 
Madge, hurriedly. And the next moment, Hobson, 
carrying the child, entered the room. 

I sat watching her pretty closely and not saying 
much. I noticed that she carefully avoided looking 


128 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


at me, and that she kept as near to Madge as she 
could. “You can leave Master Reggie here, Nurse/’ 
said my sister. “Come for him when you have had 
your tea. ” 

“ Hadn’t I better take him, ma’am,” the woman 
asked, anxiously. “ He will be a great trouble to 
you ; and he does seem so cross and fretful this 
afternoon. I can’t make out why it is. Yesterday 
he was as bright as a button.” 

I looked at her, but I could not catch her eye. 

“ No, I will ring if I want you,” said Madge, with 
what seemed like admirable firmness. “ And by the 
by, Hobson, did you make me out that list of things 
that are wanted for the nursery ? ” 

“ Here, ma’am,” Hobson replied, handing a paper 
to Madge. 

As soon as she was gone out of the room, I put 
out my hand and took the paper from her grasp. 
“ Let me have it for a minute,” I said, in answer to 
her surprised look. 

She yielded to my insistent tone and for a mo- 
ment none of us moved or spoke. “ I see a woman 
pouring something into a child’s feeding-bottle — it 
is Hobson — stay still, don’t interrupt me — she has 
put a little more sugar into it, and now she is tasting 
it. Then she takes something from her pocket and 
puts the feeding-bottle down on the table. It is a 
little bottle — a blue botile — and she drops some of the 
contents into the food — one — one — two — three — four 
drops. I can’t see the label on the blue bottle — stay 
—no, she has put it back into her pocket.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE BLUE BOTTLE. 

Poor Madge ! I shall never forget her face when 
she discovered that the admirable Hobson had been 
tampering with her precious baby’s food. 

“ Stay a minute/’ she said, in a very excited tone. 
“ I still have Hobson’s first letter to me, that in 
which she applied to me for a situation. Just wait 
a minute, Nancy, till I find it.” 

She went back to the writing-table and began to 
search for the letter with eager and trembling fingers. 
“ Take your time,” I recommended. “ I am in no 
hurry. ” 

Madge turned round upon me. “ Nancy ! ” she 
exclaimed, quite in a passion, “ how can you be so 
cold-blooded ! Don’t you realize that my only child’s 
life is hanging in the balance — that our all is at stake 
— that I cannot be calm ; while as for taking what 
you call my time is simply impossible ? ” 

“ My dear Madge, if you let yourself get into a 
flurry, you are simply undone — undone. If you 

really love that little chap as you profess, you will 
force yourself to keep cool and collected, so as to 
unmask that wretch upstairs and to leave her no 
9 I2 9 


i3° 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


loop-hole of escape. You must not forget that you 
have to deal with a determined and artful woman 
and that, even at your best, she will probably prove 
more than a match for you. Don’t waste time 
abusing me or thinking that I don’t set enough 
store by the youngster, but give your whole thought 
to showing up this woman in her true colors. Let 
me help you find it.” 

Madge, however, managed to find it by herself 
and turned from the writing-table quite flushed 
and triumphant, as eager now that I should discover 
the worst of Hobson, as before she had been anxious 
that I should think her perfect. She handed me 
the letter, which I took and read carefully. It was 
the usual kind of letter that you receive in such 
circumstances, not very well written, nor yet very 
well expressed, yet speaking confidently of her 
capabilities and of the certainty of receiving a good 
reference. It was some little time before I gathered 
anything from it but its ordinary contents. Then 
Madge’s pretty drawing-room seemed to fade away 
and another room to come in its. place. “It is 
awfully queer, Madge,” I said, “ but the only im- 
pression I seem to have is of Mr. Warrender’s room 
in Danford Barracks. I can’t understand it. I had 
exactly the same impression when Tom sent that 
paper home from India.” 

“ But Hobson could not be in any way connected 
with Mr. Warrender or his rooms,” said Madge, 
looking, as no doubt she felt, very much puzzled. 
“ Do try again.” 


THE BLUE BOTTLE. 


131 

I held the letter between my two hands once 
more, but that room came back to me with per- 
sistent pertinacity. “ I’m sure she is connected in 
some way with that room,” I said — then shut my 
eyes and tried hard to disconnect myself from that 
particular influence. 

I succeeded better than I had dared to hope for, 
and presently another scene began to form itself on 
my mental vision. “ Oh, now we are getting 
nearer,” I said. “Yes, I see Hobson quite plainly 
— she is sitting in a very pretty room near to a 
window. She is reading a letter, a very long and 
closely-written letter, on flimsy paper. It doesn’t 
look like Hobson a bit, for she has a smart tea-gown 
on, a fine pink silk affair, and it has a great deal of 
lace about the shoulders, and a diamond brooch 
glitters at her throat. As well as I can make out, 
it is a name — it looks like John. No, it is not 
John. . . . It is Joan, I believe. . . . Yes, 

it is Joan.” 

“ Hobson’s name is Matilda,” remarked my sister, 
in an undertone. 

“ Or she says it is,” returned Eve, in the same 
low voice. 

I did not take any notice of either remark. I 
wanted to keep my mind firmly fixed on the picture 
which was before me and this kind of sight is very 
hard to hold, for it is gone almost before one knows 
it is there, and even a breath of unsympathetic dis- 
belief is often enough to drive away the power for 
that day. 


1 3 2 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ She is reading the letter again, reading it very 
carefully as if she does not like its contents. Now 
she has turned to a side table and takes a newspaper 
from a heap lying there, and she turns it over and 
over, as if she is searching for something. Now she 
has found it and she reads it carefully several times ; 
then sits thinking deeply. She is resting her head 
on her hand and her thoughts are far from pleasant 
ones, but she gives* her head a decided toss as if she 
has fully made up her mind about something. Now 
she gets up and goes to a small cabinet of carved 
dark wood, she unlocks it and takes out a bottle 
which she looks at for a moment. She puts it down 
on the table and reaches for another bottle in the 
cabinet. That is a blue one, such a one as she has 
in her pocket now. She goes across the room and 
pours out the contents into a large plant pot in 
which an aspidestria is growing. Then she goes to 
the buffet and fills the blue bottle with water, 
rinses it out and empties that again into the 
aspidestria pot. Then she puts the blue empty 
bottle and the bottle with the white, clear liquid in 
it, into the cabinet again and she has locked the 
door. Now she walks to the window and stands 
looking out into the street, then with a gesture of 
impatience she sits down at the table and begins to 
write a letter. . . Ah, she is fading away — I can 

see nothing more. At least not about Hobson — for 
Warrender’s room has come back again, Madge,” 
I broke off with a gasp for breath — “ I can do no 
more. ” 


THE BLUE BOTTLE. 


I 33 


By this time I- was thoroughly played out, and 
felt almost hysterical. My sister, on the contrary, 
seemed to have gathered strength and calmness as 
my nerve became exhausted. She told Eve to ring 
the bell, with an expression which made me think of 
a tigress robbed of its cubs — “ Bring some brandy 
and soda at once, please,” she said. Then when the 
man returned with it she ordered him to mix a glass 
for me and stood over me while I drank it. “ Tell 
Hobson to come here,” was her further command. 

In a few minutes Hobson came, with a smile on 
her face and words of affection for the boy who was 
sitting perfectly contented and happy on Eve’s lap. 
“ No, I don’t want you to take Master Reginald yet,” 
said Madge in a dangerously quiet voice. “I am 
going to ask you to do something rather strange, 
Hobson, but I shall expect you to do it whether it 
pleases you or not. What have you in your 
pocket ? ” 

The woman gave a jump — ‘‘Nothing out of the 
ordinary, ma’am,” she protested. 

“Then you will have no objection to turn out its 
contents, ” said my sister, coldly. 

Practically Hobson had no choice but to comply, 
but she did so with a very bad grace. Slowly she 
began to take the things out of her pocket, a hand- 
kerchief, a pair of small scissors in a sheath, a 
thimble, an india-rubber ring of the eh 1 ’ Id’s and a 
small purse with a gilt initial on one side of it. 
“That is not all,” said my sister, in a tone of ice. 

“That is all, ma’am,” replied Hobson, defiantly. 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


*34 

“I want to see that bottle in your pocket,” said 
Madge, standing close up to her and looking straight 
into her eyes. “Come, Hobson, it is no use trying 
to get out of this. I know you have a bottle in 
your pocket, and I mean to see it. Give it to me 
this moment/’ 

The woman was like a bird fascinated by a snake, 
and she gave up the bottle without a word. Madge 
handed it to me. “A blue bottle, you see,” she 
said, significantly. 

Then the fury of the woman burst forth. “I have 
you to thank for this,” she cried, passionately, to 
me. “ I’ve always known you’ve been against me. 
I suppose you’ve been spying after me, making a 
mountain out of a molehill.” 

“ Hobson ! ” said my sister, in a tone of rebuke and 
command which accorded most strangely with her 
belief in Hobson, which I had only just, after much 
difficulty, dispelled. 

She handed the bottle to me, and I took it to the 
light and examined it carefully. It was a blue 
fluted bottle, such as is ordinarily used to contain 
poisons, and on the label was the word “Lauda- 
num,” with the address of a London chemist printed 
below. 

“You have been giving my child laudanum!’ 
thundered my sister, in an awful tone. 

“Never!” replied Hobson, in a voice of equal 
firmness. 

At this point I took out the cork that I might 
smell the stuff in the bottle, indeed I emptied a few 


THE BLUE BOTTLE . 


*35 


drops into my glass, just as Hobson went on speak- 
ing, in a fierce, grating tone. “Would any woman 
in her senses give a baby like that laudanum ? ” she 
demanded, furiously. “ I had the toothache and I 
did what I always do, I put a few drops on a bit of 
cotton wool and laid it inside my mouth — there’s 
nothing out of the way in that.” 

“ But this is not laudanum, and you know it,” I 
putin. “And you did drop some of this into the 
child’s bottle — you know it. Four drops. You are 
slowly poisoning the child, Joan Manning.” 

The effect of my sudden flash of comprehension 
upon Hobson was simply electrical. Her face faded 
to a gray-greenish tint, and a sort of spasm con- 
vulsed her for a minute or two. In all my life I had 
never seen any woman so beset with terror ; her 
knees seemed to knock together and her hands 
shook like aspens. She looked round as if trying to 
escape. 

“The police are not after you yet,” I said, sig- 
nificantly. “You will be wanted by and by, and it 
will be perfectly useless trying to evade justice. A 
power more cunning and terrible than a bloodhound 
is on your track, Joan Manning, a power which you 
cannot fight against, struggle and dodge as you 
will.” 

For a moment I thought she was going to break 
down and make a full confession ; but I was mis- 
taken, for she made a sudden rush at me and 
knocked the little blue bottle out of my hand. “At 
all events you shall not have anything to show for 


i 3 6 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


what you say,” she cried, and the next minute 
Madge had rung the bell, and Eve was standing 
between her and the door. 

It was all over and done in a moment, or what 
seemed so. A couple of men-servants took charge 
of Hobson, while a third went to fetch a policeman 
• — a village policeman, who declined to interfere 
without a magistrate’s warrant. 

Well, you know what an ordinary village police- 
man is, and this one happened to have once got 
into trouble for acting on his own responsibility, 
instead of waiting for a warrant. It was no use. 
Madge stormed and raved, and the men-servants 
made remarks which were perfect specimens of 
caustic wit, but the village guardian of the peace 
was inflexible and not an inch would he budge. So 
while we were waiting in a state of paralysis, 
Matilda, alias Joan Manning, put most of her things 
together and betook herself away. 

And what a commotion it was which followed ! 
Geoffrey Dagenham came home in time for dinner 
and heard the whole story almost before he had 
crossed the threshold, and when he gathered how 
that village policeman had been crass idiot enough 
to let a murderous woman escape on a mere techni- 
cality, his rage and fury really were beyond control. 

However, it was no use to rage and storm. 
Raging and storming do not undo what has been 
done, and Joan Manning was gone — had indeed got 
several hours’ start of us all. The lady had, how- 
ever, reckoned somewhat without her host, when 


THE BLUE BOTTLE. 


1 37 


she had, as she thought, so cleverly knocked the 
little blue bottle out of my hand. For I had still 
got possession of the few drops which I had poured 
into my glass, more from curiosity than anything 
else. Geoffrey sent down for the doctor, who came 
and smelt it, then tasted it, looking very wise and 
as if he knew a great deal about it, when in truth he 
was profoundly ignorant of the whole matter. 

“ I had better keep the broken pieces of the bottle,” 
said Geoffrey, “and put this,” touching the glass, 
“ into a sound bottle and cork it up tight. To-mor- 
row I will take it up to London and get it analyzed. 
I shall follow the affair up to the extremest end.” 

It is scarcely necessary in the interests of this 
story to follow this extraordinary incident so far as 
that. It is enough to say that my sister apologized 
to me very prettily that night for what she had said 
in the earlier part of the afternoon, and that Geoffrey 
set the whole machinery of the law at work, and 
with such good effect that Joan Manning was soon 
in the hands of the police, and that such custody 
resulted in her receiving a sentence of two years’ 
hard labor, together with a compliment from the 
judge on the extreme lightness of her sentence. And 
as Eve remarked that evening at dinner — “There 
won’t be any more pink silk tea-gowns for Joan 
Manning until she has had ample time for reflection 
over the mutability of human hopes and desires.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE RUBY CLARET-JUG. 

Six months had gone by since Joan Manning, alias 
Matilda Hobson, had been consigned to durance 
vile for her attempt to take the life of my sister’s 
little son. By that time the whole neighborhood 
was in the secret of my wonderful gift, and any idea 
we might, as a family, once have had as to keeping 
it strictly to ourselves, had been dispelled forever. 

I cannot say that, on the whole, I found my exist- 
ence at all improved by this knowledge becoming 
general. From the time of Joan Manning’s trial I 
was a marked person. When I went to a party, 
people used to look at me exactly as if I had the evil 
•eye and might scorch their very souls by so much as 
glancing at them. Mothers used to tremble if their 
daughters were left alone with me, and perfect 
strangers used to come to me with all sorts of the 
most flimsy excuses to bespeak my good offices to 
unravel the most extraordinary tangles in their lives. 

I had grown up very much prettier than I had 
promised to be when a girl, so that when I went to 
dances, which was rather frequently, it used to be 
very amusing to see young men casting their eyes 

138 


THE RUBY CLARET-JUG. 


*39 


around in search of partners and then to see them 
turn to some friend to ask who I was and if they 
could be introduced to me? The answer was al- 
ways given in the same sort of way — with a myste- 
rious whisper followed by an expression of much 
astonishment from the inquirer. I knew so well 
just what was being said. “ I say, old chap, who’s 
that girl ? Rather pretty, ain’t, she ? Wish you’d 
introduce me.” And then the answer — “Delighted 
to, but — don’t you know — she’s not quite like other 
girls. Swagger enough and all that, but a bit queer 
in some ways. Got second-sight, or the evil eye, or 
something — always finding out things about people 
and splitting about ’em at inconvenient moments. 
By Jove, if you’ve ever murdered anybody or stolen 
a will or anything of that kind, I wouldn’t advise you 
to go in for her, no, I wouldn’t, by Jove.” 

And some of them used to sheer off in a highly 
uncomfortable way, though whether they had ever 
murdered anybody or stolen a will or done anything 
else of that kind, I could not say. And some of 
them used to boldly go for me and then try to lead 
me out upon occult matters, of which, by the bye, I 
was painfully ignorant. I don’t know much about 
such things now, but then I was just as blissfully 
ignorant as the babe unborn. While, as for my 
indisputable gift of second-sight, I really did not 
know much about that either. When it had pos- 
session of me, I felt the effects of it ; but of its work- 
ings I was profoundly unknowing. 

From the very first time that the general knowl- 


I40 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


edge of my gift began to creep out among our 
acquaintances, the colonel rigidly set his face against 
my being made use of in any way for acting as a 
detective. So when people came, asking if I would 
find out for them if a friend was true or false to them, 
or whether such and such a person was straight or 
not, he always emphatically forbade my interfering 
in any way with the affairs of others. “But, 
Colonel Reynard/’ a gentleman expostulated one day, 
when my father had forbidden me to try to find out 
who had stolen certain bonds of his, “ do you think 
that you are right or justified in keeping your 
daughter’s great power as a private matter ? ” 

“ Right or wrong, I will not allow her to exert 
this force for the benefit of strangers,” my father re- 
plied. “ You, sir, are a total stranger to me and, to 
be frank, I regard this request as a distinct intrusion. 
You must be perfectly well aware that no young girl 
can exert such a force without giving out a large 
share of her vitality. Why should my child give out 
her vitality for you ? What are your bonds to us ? 
Her vitality is something to her, it is her very life. 
You may get your bonds back, but vitality once ex- 
hausted can never be brought back again. Besides 
that, my daughter is not a professional clairvoyante 
and never will be. You have as much right to go 
and ask the queen to dance a jig for you, as you 
have to come and ask my daughter, who is an 
absolute stranger to you, to exert, for your own 
ends, a power which is a very great responsibility 
and annoyance to her already.” 


THE RUBY CLARE T-jUG. i 4 i 

With that, of course, the gentleman had to be 
satisfied, as indeed there was no more to be said. 
He went away somewhat crestfallen, and the 
colonel read me what, for him, was quite a lecture 
on the evils that would follow, if I ever allowed my- 
self to be persuaded to use my power for the benefit 
of persons to whom it might be convenient. 

As a matter of fact, however, for a long time after 
everything came to light about Joan Manning, or 
rather after Joan Manning was put out of the way 
of doing any more mischief of that particular kind, 
my life flowed on in quite ordinary grooves and I 
saw nothing out of the common. Indeed, I began 
to think that my power had completely exhausted 
itself. But eventually it proved not so, for I was 
sitting in the garden one day with mother and Eve, 
when a sudden vision came to me. 

It was the first time in my life that any vision 
had ever come to me other than by actual contact ; 
invariably, I had had touch of some kind with those 
whom I saw, some connecting link between my 
brain and the other brain far away with which I 
suddenly found myself en rapport. This experience 
was, however, entirely different. As a matter of 
fact, we had had several visitors and the day being 
exceedingly oppressive, mother had ordered some 
claret to be brought out for the doctor, who came 
in for a little friendly chat. Poor man, he was very 
tired, I remember, and the claret was very grateful 
to him. And when he had revived a little, he 
turned to me and asked me a question. “How 


142 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


go the visions, Nancy ? ” he said, in a joking 
tone. 

“All gone, Doctor/' I replied. “And I don't 
believe there are going to be any more visions. 
I don’t really." 

“My dear child," said he, growing quite grave, 
“I am exceedingly glad to hear it. I am quite sure 
that they are very, very bad for you because they 
are bound to exhaust you tremendously. Probably 
as you grow stronger, you will outgrow the tendency 
altogether. Indeed, I don’t believe, if you had been 
a really robust child, that you would ever have known 
anything about such things at all." 

Alas, alas, within an hour of that kindly comment 
my power exercised itself once more, and one of the 
saddest visions that I had ever seen came to me. 
We had had several callers since the dear old doctor 
had left, and we three were sitting under the trees 
chatting idly. Mother had a bit of work in her 
hands and Eve was very busy tracing an embroidery 
pattern which she was going to use for something 
pertaining to Madge’s boy. I had a couple of 
illustrated papers which had just come, and was 
glancing at them in a very perfunctory way, trying 
in short to do two things at once and not succeeding 
very well, for the papers got sadly neglected. And 
presently silence fell upon us. Mother was absorbed 
in her work, and Eve was bending down over hers. 
I had been carelessly looking at the pictures when I 
somehow found myself staring at the claret-jug, 
which was a beautiful thing of ruby Bohemian glass 


THE RUBY CLARET-JUG. 


*43 


and worth far too much money to be out in a garden 
where it ran every risk of getting broken. I never 
knew what made me fix my eyes upon it, but I was 
startled to find that pictures were forming on the 
plain ruby surface of the rounded jug, pictures 
quite as clear to me as if they were painted on a 
canvas. 

As I sat there the pictures seemed to be moving, 
as it were, growing or developing before my aston- 
ished eyes. I uttered an exclamation of surprise 
and my mother looked up from her work. “What 
is it, Nancy ? ” she asked. 

“It is the strangest thing I ever knew,” I replied ; 
“ pictures are coming out of the claret-jug — why, 
it is a mess-table and all the officers are at dinner. 
I can see Tom and Mr. Warrender as clearly as 
possible.” 

“What?” cried mother and Eve in the same 
breath. 

“Yes, they are sitting next to each other, and oh, 
mother, Tom does look so ill. He keeps resting his 
head on his hand as if it ached. I am sure he is ill. 
Now Mr. Warrender is speaking to him, but Tom 
does not answer. Mr. Warrender touches him on 
the arm as if to try to attract his attention. Tom 
never moves. Mr. Warrender turns and looks down 
the long table and makes a gesture of his head to 
another officer, a much older man, whose hair is 
turning gray. He gets up and comes round to 
Tom’s chair and bends over him. Tom just shakes 
his head but does not raise his face. They all get 


144 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


up and are moving Tom’s chair back, and several of 
them have lifted it up bodily and are going to carry 
him away on it. Ah — it is all fading away into a 
thick white mist. I think that is- all. Mother, I’m 
sure Tom is ill — Stay, something else is coming. 
Oh, this is a great bare, gaunt room with several 
native servants standing about all looking thoroughly 
scared, and they keep whispering together and 
shrugging their shoulders and looking at the bed 
round which all the others are gathered. They 
have thrown the thin white curtains back and are 
' all evidently helping to do something. Now two or 
three of them are moving away a little and stand at 
a little distance ; they all look grave and sad, and the 
older man, who must be the doctor, is feeling Tom’s 
pulse and counting it by his watch. Then he gives 
him some clear white medicine in a wine-glass. He 
says something to Warrender, who nods his head 
and looks at Tom again. Tom is fearfully ill, oh, 
fearfully ill. He looks quite insensible and he is 
bluish in color. There is a lamp burning, and the 
several officers in mess-dress stand on one side of 
the bed as if they did not know what to do next, 
and the native servants stand a little way off all 
huddled together and frightened out of their senses 
almost. Only the doctor and Mr. Warrender stay 
quite near to the bed, and then the doctor gets up 
and says something to the others and they one by 
one, with a look at Tom, creep out of the room. 
Then he moves towards the servants and apparently 
gives them each some directions, for they, too, go 


THE RUBY CLARET-JUG. 


J 4S 


out, leaving only Tom and the other two. Then 
the doctor puts his hand on Mr. Warrender’s 
shoulder and says something in a very urgent sort 
of way, but he only shakes his head and does not 
move. Then the doctor puts his hand under his 
arm, as if to help him up from the chair, but Mr. 
Warrendcr only shakes his head the more vigorously 
and makes a gesture as if the other may save his 
words. I think he is asking him to go away and 
that Mr. Warrender refuses, for the older man 
shrugs his shoulders and turns out his hands palm 
uppermost, as if there is nothing else that he can say. 

“Now he is bending down over Tom again. Oh, 
mother, Tom is very ill, very, very ill ! He seems 
to be shuddering dreadfully, and now two of the 
natives come back carrying something wrapped in a 
blanket or woollen rug. The doctor takes it from 
them and — yes, it is a hot water-bottle and he is put- 
ting it to his feet. There is another and yet another 
in the blanket and he puts them all under the bed- 
clothes, and then he is giving Tom some more of 
the medicine, the white, clear medicine out of the 
same bottle as before. I don’t think Tom is quite 
unconscious, for he is speaking to Mr. Warrender, 
who bends down over him. The doctor pulls him 
back and holds his head back quite sharply. Mr. 
Warrender has hold of Tom’s hand and the doctor 
fusses about, doing things. He comes back and 
takes his pulse again and then his temperature. It 
is all fading out again — and the white mist comes 
back, so I can see nothing more. ” 
io 


46 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“Go on looking, for something, try, try to see 
what else,” cried mother, in an agonized tone. 

“You must see the rest,” put in Eve, with desper- 
ate anxiety. 

The rest ! Oh, my dear, dear Tom, if only 
I had not been the one to see what happened 
next, to see what followed in the terrible after- 
ward ! 

“Don’t talk — something is coming now,” I said, 
for by speaking they distracted me and kept me 
back from a full realization of what followed. “Yes, 
it is the same room, and the doctor and Mr. Warren- 
der are both there and several other men, one a very 
tall, fair-haired man about forty years old. There 
are two servants by the bed, but not quite so near 
as the others. Mr. Warrender sitting close by the 
bed, and now the doctor looks round. I don’t think 
Tom knows anything that is going on. He is lying 
very much sunk down among the pillows, his head 
very far back and his eyes half shut. Somebody 
else is coming in now, a man wearing plain white 
clothes and a black band round his arm. He holds 
up his hand as he reaches the threshold and is speak- 
ing. All the others bow their heads and the tall 
fair man makes way for him by the bed. He kneels 
down and is praying, and the others all kneel down, 
too, except the natives, who are standing up with 
their heads bent upon their chests. Mr. Warrender is 
kneeling too, and he has hidden his face in Tom’s 
pillow — only Tom takes no notice and he lies just 
the same, with his eyes half shut deep down among 


THE RUBY CLARET-JUG. 


J 47 

the pillows. I — I — don’t think I can go on, mother,” 
I broke off. 

Mother made a sort of a moan. “ My boy, my 
boy, tell me the rest, Nancy, tell me the rest.” 

The agony in her voice was so great that I shook 
myself together again and turned my eyes back on 
the ruby surface on which I had seen mirrored what 
was happening many thousands of miles away. The 
surface was blank, but as I gazed, it all came back 
to me. The group of men were almost unchanged, 
the one in plain white clothes was still kneeling, 
though the others had risen, with the exception of 
Tom’s great friend, Mr. Warrender. 

As I looked on the scene, there was a general 
movement which ran through all the watchers by 
my brother’s bed. I saw the doctor put up his 
hand and that Warrender’s shoulders were heaving, 
the tall fair man was covering his eyes with his 
hand — “ Mother, ask me no more ! ” I cried — “ we 
have no Tom now ! ” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


AN INDIAN TELEGRAM. 

The pictures that I had seen mirrored on the 
surface of the ruby claret-jug proved, alas ! to be too 
true, true in every small detail. Not that my people 
or I doubted it for a moment. From the time that 
I had seen the doctor hold up his hand and the tall 
fair man (whom we afterwards found w r as the 
colonel of the regiment) cover his eyes with his 
hand, I knew as well as if I had actually been pres- 
ent in the same room with them that my dear 
brother had passed from this world to another. 
Even my mother never seemed to cling to a faint 
hope that I might have been deceived for once ; oh, 
no, from that moment she mourned her eldest son 
as one who had been taken away from her and she 
was inconsolable. 

And in an incredibly short time the message came 
which confirmed my visions ; it was cruelly short, 
as all such messages are, but for us it was more 
than long enough. We knew all the details but too 
well. We were making a pretence of eating dinner 
when it came. The colonel was just trying to per- 
suade mother to eat something when old nurse came 
148 


AN INDIAN TELEGRAM. 


149 


trembling in, carrying the orange envelope in her 
shaking hand. It was not usual for nurse to show 
at meal-times, but none of the others liked to bring 
it in ; they all felt instinctively that the old woman 
who had nursed us all would bear the ill-tidings 
best. We all knew — mother gave a sort of shudder- 
ing gasp and dear Daddy held out his hand to take 
the envelope. “Give it me, Nurse, my dear old 
woman,” he said, in a very gentle voice. “You 
need not try to break it to us. We know what it is.” 

So nurse handed the telegram to him and went 
and stood by mother, holding her arm round her 
shoulders as if to shield her against what was 
coming. Father read the message in silence, going 
on carving — oh, carving, did Isay? I meant rather 
blindly hacking at a chicken, as a sightless man 
might have done. A glance was sufficient to tell me 
the contents of the paper — “Your son died this 
morning of cholera. — Le Merchant.” 

Yes, that was all, not a word more ; but, alas ! it 
was enough. It was a dreadful time which fol- 
lowed. For many weeks mother never gave way 
at all, but went about like a woman of stone, with 
terrible tearless eyes and restless hands that seemed 
able to occupy themselves with nothing. Even 
when the letters came which gave us final details, 
she never wept or broke down at all. There was 
one from Colonel Le Merchant to father, and one 
from Toms great friend, Mr. Warrender, to mother. 
The former was the shorter of the two, but was full 
of regret and sympathy. Colonel Le Merchant 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


l S° 

spoke so highly of our dear boy, said that he was 
such a good and enthusiastic soldier and so honor- 
able and full of tact, and that he was sincerely 
mourned and regretted by all ranks of the regiment. 
He added that everything that human power could 
do had been done, and that the doctor had never left 
him from the time of his seizure until the time of his 
death. Also that he had been present himself when 
the end came. 

The other letter was different ; it was full of tear- 
blots and mistakes, but it gave us the whole sad 
story from the beginning of Toms short illness to 
the very end — exactly what he had last said, and how 
the doctor had stayed by him and done everything 
that could possibly have been done, until it was use- 
less to try to avert the end. “I am afraid, dear, 
kind Mrs. Reynard,” he went on, “ that the telegram 
was an awful shock to you, and yet I feel sure that 
in some way the event would reveal itself to Miss 
Nancy, and that you already know all that there is 
to know — he, dear old fellow, thought so too. ‘I 
don’t think I shall weather this, old chap/ he said, 
after we had got him into his own bed, ‘ I don’t feel 
like it. If I don’t, you’ll write home and let my 
people know everything and tell them I thought 
of them all to the very end. But 1 daresay Nancy 
knows all about it already.’” 

Poor mother, she carried that letter about until it 
was worn to tatters, and she read and re-read it, 
though she must have known every word by heart. 
“ That is a dear boy,” she said, when she read it the 


AN INDIAN TELEGRAM. 


I 5 I 

first time. “God keep his mother from ever know- 
ing such pain as I feel ; but if the like should ever 
come to him, may there be a heart as faithful as his 
at hand,” and then she stole away in her dreadful 
voiceless grief, leaving us all with quivering lips 
and overflowing eyes. Poor mother ! 

As time went on, we got used to the idea that 
Tom had really gone ; for a long while it seemed to 
all of us, even to mother, as if he were still out in 
India and would come home by and by, the same 
dear, jolly old Tom whom we had loved and teased 
and plagued all our lives. For a long time it was a 
terrible wrench to each one of us who were left at 
home, when we were brought back to a realization 
of the truth that Tom was gone — gone for always, 
that Tom would never come home again, that he 
was lying in his early grave under an eastern sky 
and was now nothing more to us than a dear mem- 
ory and vague shadowy hope. 

Yet time does wonders for us when we lose those 
who are dear to us ; and time did great things for 
us in this respect. We had never tried to shut him 
away out of our lives, as so many people do with their 
dead ; for one thing the doctor warned us that for 
mother’s sake we must avoid all attempt to repress 
our sorrow, and that the more we talked about Tom, 
the better chance our mother would have of finding 
a natural \'ent for her grief. And so it proved ; one 
day, after some weeks had gone by, Eve found 
mother crying over some old belongings of Tom’s, 
and from that hour the clouds were lifted from her 


J 5 2 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


brain and she became her ordinary self once more. 
No, I do not mean to convey that mother had not 
been in her right mind up to that time — nothing of 
the kind. “Yet, without doubt, if the strain of 
grief which could find no natural outlet had con- 
tinued, the consequences might have been most dis- 
astrous to her reason. And to us who loved her, it 
was terrible to see that awful, voiceless, stunned 
sorrow ; so that we were utterly thankful when the 
phase passed. 

We spent that winter in Italy, not staying in one 
place, but moving about, as our fancy prompted us 
to do. Nearly six months had gone by since Tom’s 
death. Christmas had come and gone and the New 
Year was already a few days old. We had been for 
several weeks in Naples, to which place we had 
gone because mother fancied it. And we were 
beginning to think of working our way home- 
wards by very easy stages, with long rests by the 
way. 

How well I remember the day on which we first 
met Austin Gray. We had been for a long drive, a 
sort of pilgrimage to a shrine of beauty, and had been 
away from the hotel since early morning ; and when 
we got back again, the first thing we heard was 
that several fresh visitors had arrived. They were 
not all of one party, an American father and mother 
with three daughters, a son and several hangers-on 
had come from Rome ; but this Mr. Gray, who was 
quite alone, said that he had been spending a few 
weeks in southern Italy and was last from Sorrento, 


AN INDIAN TELEGRAM. 


J 53 

of which he spoke in terms of the most rapturous 
praise. 

Somehow, we did not take very readily to the 
American party — not because we were by way of 
sniffing at Americans, as some English pretend to 
do ; but this particular set were in no need of new 
acquaintances and, being so many in themselves, 
had no special desire to know us any better than 
just well enough to say good-morning at the begin- 
ning of the day and good-night at the end of it. 
But Mr. Gray being English and alone, and we only 
three (for Eve had gone back to stay with Madge 
some little time before Christmas, taking the oppor- 
tunity of travelling home with some friends whom 
we had met in Rome), it seemed quite natural that he 
should attach himself to us and that we should make 
no objection to include him in our little outings, all 
of which were very quiet and simple, and apparently 
not much calculated to a-ttract a man who had seen 
so much and done so much as he seemed to have 
done. 

And yet he was evidently very well satisfied to 
make the fourth of our party, and for several weeks 
we went here, there, and everywhere together, and 
at last it grew to be quite a settled thing that where 
we went Mr. Gray should go too, and we had long 
ago given up the formality of asking him or he of 
suggesting to mother that, if she didn’t mind, he 
would like to join us in such and such an excursion. 

My father spotted him for a soldier at once — 
“I see you’ve been in the service too,” he said 


*54 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


to him, during the very rirst talk that he had 
with us. 

“Yes, I was some years in the service,” Mr. Gray 
replied. “But I got so tired of it and there seemed 
to be no prospect, either of promotion or of active 
service, that I felt as if I were just wasting my time 
when I might be occupying it to better advantage. 
Since I left the army, I have done some big shooting 
and I rather fancy that I shall try a turn of exploring 
next year.” 

“Do you?” said my father. “Well, I always 
say let those who like that kind of work go in for it. 
I never had the least inclination for anything of the 
sort. ” 

Mr. Gray glanced at my mother and then, at me — 
“Ah, but if you were quite alone in the world, as 
I am, you would understand the fascination of 
doing something a bit out of the common. Not but 
what I would stand in your shoes to-morrow if I 
could.” 

“Similar shoes are very easy to find,” said the 
colonel, with a gay laugh — “if you really want to 
find them. But you are quite right, a wife and a 
home of your own do make you less enterprising.” 

Then Mr. Gray began to talk to me. He talked 
well and easily, touching on many subjects and 
speaking with a certain amount of cultivation on 
every topic which cropped up in our conversation. 
“What regiment were you in ? ” I asked him, when 
we had been chatting for half an hour or so. 

“In the Blankshire,” he replied. 


AN INDIAN TELEGRAM. 


*55 

“That 


“Oh, were you really?” I exclaimed, 
was Mr. Caspar Barry’s regiment.” 

“Caspar Barry — why, do you know him?” our 
new friend cried. “Why, I was three years with 
Caspar Barry. What a dear old fellow he was ! ” 

“Yes, he was; we all liked him immensely — 
especially father and I. ” I really added this as an 
after-thought, for as a matter of fact, Caspar Barry 
was once a great flame of Eve’s and had, so to speak, 
shaken the dust of our domicile off his feet about 
two years before, and Eve had been hard-hearted 
enough to laugh and to declare with an air of fine 
scorn, that Caspar Barry had not really cared a fig 
for her, but had been solely moved to admiration of 
her by the fact that she was the only girl he had 
ever met who had not promptly fallen down and 
worshipped him. 

We used to wonder, mother and I, how it was 
that Eve, who was so pretty and bright and clever, 
should be so very hard to please in the matter of her 
admirers, but I am bound to say that Eve was 
always entirely consistent and sent them all to the 
right-about in double-quick time. “Time enough, 
time enough,” she would cry, when mother ventured 
to put in a word for some discarded adorer. “I 
am very well as I am. I don’t want to leave home 
yet awhile ; by and by, I will see what I can do to 
oblige you.” 

“ I am so afraid when Eve does take a fancy to any 
one,” mother sighed one day to me, after just such 
an off-hand speech from my sister, “that she will 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


* 5 6 

have it badly — and that so often means trouble, espe- 
cially for a woman. I really do wish that she had 
been more like Madge ; there’s safety in numbers. ” 

“And Madge did have numbers,” I reminded her, 
laughing. 

Well, it is no use wasting time in wishing that 
people over whom one has absolutely no control, 
were different to what they are. For myself I never 
troubled about the matter. If Eve, who was five years 
older than I was, chose to keep all the men she knew 
at a distance, why, it was her business, not mine. 
But that was how Caspar Barry came into the story. 

“I suppose you don’t know where he is now?” I 
remarked, when we had further discussed some of 
Caspar Barry’s charming qualities. 

“The last time I saw him he was just off to the 
Rockies for an indefinite stay,” he replied. 

“Oh, then he really did go to the Rockies ; he 
said he would, but people do change their minds so. 
One never knows whether they really mean what 
they say.” 

“ Oh, yes, he really did go — at least, to the best of 
my belief,” Mr. Gray said. 

I told Eve the news when I next wrote to her ; 
but she did not seem to be at all contrite for having 
driven a poor young man away from his native land 
with a sore, sore heart, like a wounded animal that 
only wants to get somewhere out of sight of every 
eye. Girls are very hard of heart, and Eve was 
especially so. She wound up her letter with a little 
dig at me on the score of our new friend. 


an Indian telegram. 


'51 


“I feel, dear old Nancy, ” she said, when she had 
disposed of poor Caspar Barry, ‘‘that you are going 
to fall in love with this new friend, Mr. Gray. Your 
letter is quite full of him, and poor old Caspar only 
acquires a certain degree of importance in your eyes, 
because he was in the same regiment with this 
Austin Gray. It’s a pretty name and you say its 
owner is good-looking as well. It is evident to me 
that he must be simply perfection, for you seem to 
have found out nothing about him. Does he know 
you yet ? I mean does he know about your wonder- 
ful gift ? If not, I should not dream of telling him a 
single word about it. Dear me, I wonder did you 
know how quite full of him your letter is ? I can 
hardly imagine you in love, Nancy ; you have 
always been such a cold little thing towards men. 
By the by, did it ever strike you how utterly unlike 
you and I are to Madge, who was a regular flirt 
and no mistake about it, and who really and truly, 
as I always tell her, did not in the least deserve to 
end by getting such a delightful husband as dear old 
Geoffrey ! ” 

I sat thinking deeply when I had read my sister’s 
letter through, turning over in my mind all that she 
had said about our new friend. Was I falling in love 
with him ? Was he falling in love with me ? I did 
not know, I could not tell ; only I did know this, 
that I never had any feeling that there was anything 
to find out about him, never, never once. 


CHAPTER XV. 


AUSTIN GRAY. 

When six weeks had gone by we were still linger- 
ing on at Naples. The place suited us perfectly, 
and mother seemed better and brighter than she had 
been at any time since our dear Toms death. The 
climate was perfect, we could sit out of doors watch- 
ing the lovely blue sea rippling under the yet bluer 
sky, when it made us all shiver to even think of 
sitting down for a moment in the open at home 
in England. And we took advantage of the possi- 
bility, every one of us, for the hotel had a charming 
garden with a terrace and we used to sit there for 
hours together. I well remember one afternoon that 
my father had gone down into the town — if the truth 
be told on the look-out for some queer old plates of 
which he had heard the previous day and which, 
from the description given by a young American 
staying in the hotel, he believed to be of great value. 
They were in a rather squalid part of the town and 
he had preferred to go alone. Mother was busy 
writing to Madge and also to Dick, whose birthday 
was drawing near and who was steadily making 
way at the business which he had chosen for his 
158 


AUSTIN GRAY. 


*59 


walk in life. She was writing at the window of our 
sitting-room and I was sitting in the sunshine with 
a big white umbrella and a book, when Mr. Gray 
came out of the hotel and joined me. I had seen him 
before that day, for he always sat near to us at meals, 
and I quite thought that he had gone curiosity-hunt- 
ing with the colonel. I told him so. 

“No,” he replied, “I gathered that your father 
did not care about having a companion. He is after 
some unusually rare prize and wants to have it all 
to himself. Has he always had this love for curios ? ” 

“Most decidedly not,” I returned with a laugh. 
“It is quite a new mania. Ever since we came 
abroad this time, he has been steadily collecting 
things, and the strangest part of it is that, although 
it is quite recently that he has taken to it, he seems 
to know a good thing when he sees it by a sort of 
intuition. He has picked up some really wonder- 
ful bargains ; but Eve, my sister, you know, took 
most of them home with her when she went before 
Christmas.” 

“Your sister went home before Christmas,” said 
Mr. Gray, in a wandering kind of tone, as if his 
thoughts were very far away. 

“Yes, she is staying with my married sister at 
Dagenham, not far from where we live, near Min- 
chester. Do you know that part at all ? ” 

“ I have been in Minchester for a day or two,” he 
replied. 

“ Have you ? And do you know any one there? ” 
I asked. 


j6o a seventh child . 

“ Not a soul, not any one. I went down to look 
at a place there — no, not for myself, but for a friend. 
She did not take it — she took a dislike to the place 
instead.” 

“That was very unfortunate — for Minchester,” I 
said, laughing again.- 

“ But I mean to go to Minchester again and I 
mean to like it very much indeed — that is unless 
some one is very unkind to me and tells me it is no 
use going there at all.” He spoke meaningly and 
I felt myself growing as red as a peony. 

“ What do you think? ” he asked. 

“Oh — well, it would depend on why you wanted 
to go there,” I returned, trying hard to speak in 
quite an ordinary tone. 

For answer he took possession of the big umbrella 
and held it so as to shield us from observation. 
“Nancy — I may call you so, may I not ? — you know 
what I mean. If I come to Minchester at all, it 
will be to see you, and if you send me away, Min- 
chester — and every other place for that matter — will 
be all black and dreary, just as England and the 
Atlantic and the Rockies are to poor old Caspar 
Barry. You won’t be hard of heart like your sister, 
will you? Speak, Nancy.” 

I did not speak, because I scarcely knew what to 
say. I felt — what did I feel ? In truth, I hardly 
know. He took possession of my hand and it lay 
trembling in his grasp, like a bird that scarcely 
knows whether to struggle or to remain still in 
the prison in which it has found itself, “Have 


AUSTIN GRAY. 


161 

you nothing to say to me?” he asked reproach- 
fully. 

“I don’t know — I don’t know,” I cried. “What 
am I to say ? ” 

He laughed outright. “Nancy, my dear little 
girl,” he said, in a greatly amused voice, “I think 
that there are very few men who wish to marry 
who would not prefer to be the first, the very first 
lover to the girl to whom they wish to be every- 
thing. It is very evident to me that you are — that 
is, that there has never been any one else in your 
life, and that I am your very first lover. It is so, 
is it not ? ” 

“Are you my lover?” I asked, wonderingly. 

“I want to be so,” he replied promptly. 
“Whether I am or not depends, of course, on you,” 

“ But you don’t seem to be in love with me,” I 
explained. “ Are you really, really ? ” 

He dropped the umbrella still lower and caught 
my hand in his. “I — Nancy, my darling — look at 
me, don’t you think I am in love with you enough ? 
Why, how much in love would you like me to be ? ” 

He caught hold of both of my hands, letting the 
umbrella take care of itself, which it did by catch- 
ing against my sleeve — “Nancy — my darling — my 

love- ” and then somehow he drew me close to 

him and kissed me. 

It was the first time that any one — I mean that 
any man — had ever kissed me, and I shivered from 
head to foot as if I had been struck by a blast of 
cold air. 
ii 


162 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“Nancy,” he cried, “Nancy — have you nothing 
to say to me? You do love me, you must love me, 
Nancy.” 

I drew myself back a little from the clasp of his 
jealous arms. “Mr. Gray ” 

He held me still closer. “Well, Mr. Gray is 
listening,” he said, as I paused and looked at him. 

“You are not very reasonable — you have not told 
me yet that you care for me either,” I said. 

“ Did not my words tell you so? Do I not look 
as if I loved you? See this,” holding out his hand, 
which was trembling violently-^ “is not this proof 
enough for you ? What do you expect, how can I 
satisfy you ? Nancy, I believe you are only trying 
to tease me.” 

“ I am not trying to tease you,” I cried, half indig- 
nantly. “I never tried to tease any one in that way 
in all my life, never. It isn’t kind of you to say so, 
Mr. Gray.” 

He looked all penitence in a moment. ‘ ‘ Darling, ” 
he said, taking up the umbrella again and adjusting 
it anew, “ I humbly beg your pardon if I said any- 
thing untrue ; but here I am, patiently waiting, 
waiting to hear you say one little word, and you 
persist in not saying it. It is ever so easy. Come, 
won’t you satisfy me ? ” 

“You know I like you,” I said, at last. 

“Like — like — oh, what’s liking?” he repeated in 
huge disdain. “I want my wife to do more than 
love me, Nancy. I want my wife to worship me.” 

“But I don’t,” I objected. 


AUSTIN GRAY. 163 

“But you might at least try — Oh, Nancy, dear 
little sweetheart, you might try.” 

He was holding my hands tightly in his own 
again and looking eagerly into my eyes. I felt like 
a puzzled and half-frightened child, as if I did not 
know how to cope with this sudden whirlwind of 
affection. I drew back a little. “ You — you frighten 
me,” I managed to say. 

Mr. Gray let go my hand and, as it were, shook 
himself together. He sat back, quite away from me, 
and his eyes drooped before mine. I felt all at once 
that I had been utterly unkind to him. “ Don't look 
like that!” I exclaimed, “I did not mean to hurt 
you. Did I seem unkind? Forgive me, you know 
I am not used to this sort of thing.” 

I held out my hands again and he caught them 
in his, then bent down and kissed them passionately 
many times. “Nancy,” he said, in a glad, trium- 
phant tone — “Mine, all mine! Tell me once, only 
once, that you really love me.” 

But instead of telling him so I sat and stared at 
him in utter wonder. “Tell me,” I said — “where 
did we ever meet before that evening when you 
came from Sorrento ? I am sure I met you long ago 
— Where was it ? ” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


ENGAGED. 

When I said to Austin that I was sure I had seen 
him somewhere or other before the evening of his 
arrival at Naples, from Sorrento, he caught me to 
him and kissed me a dozen times in that strange, 
bold, masterful way which was quite his greatest 
charm. “My dear little girl,” he said, holding me 
closely to him and looking right down into my eyes, 

‘ ‘ that is the greatest proof that you and I were 
meant for each other. Do you know I believe, 
firmly and absolutely, that certain people are always 
put in the same relation to each other, no matter 
how many lives they may live, no matter in what 
ages their separate lives may happen to fall.” 

“But you don’t think we live more than once !” 
I exclaimed, in utter astonishment. 

“Why, of course I do. I believe that every one 
of us goes on living over and over again until we 
accomplish the end for which we are meant. Some- 
times, according to the way in which we have be- 
haved ourselves here — that is, in the past life, the 
last life — we get quite near to our affinities ; some- 
times we — for every one of us go up or down 


ENGAGED. 


65 


according to our deserts — are stranded far apart 
from them. How else do you account for our 
curious feeling that we have met certain people 
before? How else do you account for the most 
unlikely people remaining unmarried ? How else 
do you account for some people marrying immeas- 
urably beneath them? Fate, my dear child, fate, 
nothing else.” 

“ It is a curious creed/’ I said, reflectively. 

“As curious as the second-sight, ” he put in, not 
looking at me, but right out across the sparkling 
blue waters. 

For a moment I was tempted to tell him about 
my strange gift. A kind of cold shiver ran through 
me, and a swift, sudden instinct rose up like a 
beacon light, saying, “Not yet, not yet, keep your 
own counsel. Silence is golden.” So I let the op- 
portunity pass and said nothing about it at all. 

Perhaps it was not very honest of me ; but, some- 
how, I did shrink from disclosing myself to him in 
that one way. He went on speaking, but, oddly 
enough, not on the same subject. “Tell me,” he 
said, and he spoke as if we had been discussing the 
matter before, “ is your sister at all like you ? ” 

“Do you mean Eve, or my married sister, Mrs. 
Dagenham ? ” I asked. 

“I meant the one you speak of so often,” he 
replied, “ the one who went home before Christmas.” 

“That is Eve. No, she is not at all like me.” 

“You mean to look at,” he said, carelessly. 
“But I meant in disposition.” 


i66 


A SE VENTH CHILD. 


“ 1 don’t know that she is. She is much more 
intense than I am. When Eve once takes an idea 
in her head, wild horses would not drag it out 
again. We used to call her the bull-dog when we 
were all little, at least poor dear Tom called her so, 
and we all took the idea from him. ” 

“ And Tom — why do you speak of him like 
that ? ” 

I felt my eyes fill with tears. “ I thought we had 
told you about him long ago," I cried. “Our 
dear, dear Tom — he died of cholera last year in 
India. ” 

He looked all penitence and concern in a minute. 

“Forgive me,” he said, very softly — then touched 
my black frock — “and that is why you’ are wear- 
ing this,” he said, gently. 

“Yes, that is why, and that is really why we are 
abroad this winter. We would rather have been at 
home, though we have spent a good many winters 
abroad ; but my mother felt dear Tom’s death dread- 
fully, oh, dreadfully, and father thought there was 
nothing like a complete change for her. She is 
wonderfully better, though, you know, nothing will 
ever quite take the pain of our loss away from any 
of us. ” 

“And you were all very devoted to him?” he 
asked. 

“Oh, yes, we are all very fond of one another. I 
think if there was anything to choose among us, 
that Eve idolized Tom more than any of us did. 
You see they were near of an age and all their tastes 


ENGAGED. 167 

went together. Eve was almost heart-broken when 
we knew that Tom was gone.” 

I am sure she was, ” said Austin, and he said it 
with such a tender tone that I seemed to love him 
all at once in a great gush of feeling such as I had 
never known before. 

“Oh, Mr. Gray, you would have liked Tom !•” I 
exclaimed, impulsively. “ He was such a dear, 
dear boy. Everybody loved him, and when he died 
the colonel wrote that he was loved and regretted 
by all ranks of his regiment. And he was so jolly 
and cheery, such fun, and ready for everything that 
came along.” 

“ And his regiment? ” 

“He was in the 26 th Hussars,” I replied. 

“My poor little darling,” he said kindly. “It 
must have been terrible for you all.” And then he 
went on talking about Tom and hearing about all 
of us until at last I asked him if he would like to 
see my photographs. 

He said, promptly, that he would greatly like 
to see them, and I rose to go and fetch them. But 
before I could leave him, he pulled me down on to 
the seat again and told me that there was just one 
thing that I might do for him before I went. 

“I’ll do it, if I can,” I answered, sitting down 
again. 

“ Well, in the first place, I don’t like you to go on 
calling me Mr. Gray — it’s — it’s unkind.” 

“I don’t mind what I call you,” I replied, 
smiling. 


1 68 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“That’s good. Then perhaps you won’t mind 
calling me Austin in future. ” 

“Yes, I will call you Austin, with pleasure,” I 
said. “Austin is a very nice name — I like it.” 

“I like it too, now,” he said, as if he had never 
before thought, his name even tolerable. “Then, 
Nancy, what about your people ? Am I to say any- 
thing to them or not? ” 

“Yes, I think you had better tell father as soon 
as he comes back,” I replied. It did not certainly 
occur to me to dread my father’s hearing of the new 
relations between Austin and me. But his next 
remark proved that he had a wholesome horror of 
facing a stern parent. 

“ Hadn’t I better wait till after dinner ? ” he asked, 
quite nervously, too. “Unless, indeed, he has got 
a very good bargain during this pilgrimage. ” 

“Why, he isn’t an ogre,” I cried. 

“No, no, but he may take this all wrong — he 
may think that— that he does not know enough 
about me — and — and ” 

I laughed outright. “You can refer him to some- 
body, to your commanding officer, to your lawyers 
and your bankers and the clergyman of your parish,” 
I exclaimed, gayly. 

“Oh, yes, yes, of course I can. It was only that 
I did not know how he might take it personally. 
Some men, you know, are as charming as charming 
can be, until the unlucky day when you go and ask 
them for their daughters, and then there are ructions, 
fearful ructions.” 


Engaged. 


169 


“ You are evidently very well versed in the pro- 
cess,” I remarked. 


He turned sharply round upon me. “ Nancy, my 
little woman, are you jealous ? ” he asked. 


“ But of whom ?” I cried. 

“Of any one. I mean is your nature a jealous 
one ? Else why did you take me up like that ? 
Will you believe me when I tell you that I never in 
all my life asked any woman ^fo marry^me before?” 

“Of course, I will. No, I am not at all jealous 
by disposition — at least I have never been jealous of 
my brothers and sisters, and as to any one else, I 
have never cared for any one, so that I could not 
have been jealous, could I ? Still, one cannot tell. 
I may develop a most fearfully jealous disposition ; 
who knows, who can tell ? ” 

“ Heaven forbid ! ” he ejaculated, feelingly. 
“ Forgive me for the suggestion. I thought it might 
be so from the way in which you took me up, that 
was all.” 

“Well, of course, it was the obvious inference — 
Oh, here is the colonel. Well, did you pick up any 
bargains ? ” I called out to him. 

The colonel sat down on the seat beside us, “My 
dear child, that young American is a fool,” he re- 
marked, solemnly. “ I quite thought that all Amer- 
icans were as keen as knives after bargains in this 
sort of thing ; but evidently this young fellow does 
not know Majolica from Capo di Monti.” 

“He has got bargains,” I remarked over my 
shoulder to Austin. “ But, Daddy, dear, why draw 


170 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


out the agony like this? You may just as well let 
us see the treasures at once, without exciting our 
curiosity in this way. But it’s no use,” I continued 
to Austin, “He always does it; it’s part of the 
business. ” 

However, this time my father did not try to draw 
out the agony, but undid his- parcel and showed us 
what he had got. Don’t imagine that it was a smart 
paper parcel such as you get in England ; on the 
contrary, it was done up in his pocket-hankerchief ! 
He opened it with care and displayed his purchase 
with pride — “ Two lire,” he said, simply. 

“Oh, nonsense ! ” I cried, “You are chaffing us, 
Daddy.” 

“Two lire, I give you my word,” he declared — 
“And as perfect a specimen as I ever remember to 
have seen.” 

His other purchases were equally wonderful both 
as to quality and cheapness, and I did not wonder 
that he was so visibly elated, I stayed with them 
for a few minutes, indeed until it was time to go 
and make ready for dinner. And then I left them 
with a careless excuse, thinking that it would be a 
good opportunity for Austin to make his confession 
to father. 

However, when I came down again with mother, 
I saw at a glance that he had not said a single word. 
Father, at the sight of us went quickly indoors with 
a laughing excuse for his enthusiasm. I looked at 
Austin. 

“I never had a chance of saying a word, ” he 


ENGAGED. 


171 

whispered, apologetically. “I assure you I had 
not a chance of getting a word in edgeways. And 
now I must be off to dress.” 

He fled away and I sat down on the seat by 
mother. She watched him with thoughtful eyes, 
“Do you like him, Nancy?” she asked. I don’t 
mean that she asked it in a way at all personal to 
myself. Not at all, but the whole family were so 
impressed with my gift of reading people that they all 
were in the habit of, as it were, asking my thoughts 
of any one with whom we were brought into contact. 

“Yes, I like him immensely,” I replied. 

“You have had no feeling about him, nothing un- 
usual ? ” she asked, half hesitatingly, “I mean in 
your way, you know. ” 

It was the first time since our dear Tom’s death 
that mother had ever touched upon the subject of 
my gift of second sight. “ Why do you ask, dear ? ’’ 
I said, gently. “Don’t you quite like him?” 

“ Well, yes — I think I do. But I feel as if I knew 
something about him, though I don’t know what.” 
She spoke uneasily, as if she was somewhat disturbed 
in mind. 

“ How odd that you should feel that ! ” I ex- 
claimed, “because I, too, feel exactly like that 
about him. I told him so this afternoon.” 

“And he said ? ” 

“Oh, he was really silly about it. He says that 
he believes we all live many, many times over, up 
or down in the world according to the way we have 
last behaved ourselves, and — and he thinks that we, 


72 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 

that is, he and I, you know, have met before — 
many times/’ 

Mother turned and looked at me. “Nancy, my 
darling, has — that is, does Mr. — at least, is he ” 

“Yes, I’m very much afraid he is, dear mother,’’ 
I replied. I felt the hot blood mount up to my face 
as my eyes fell before the look of consternation in 
hers. 

“ But has he said anything — anything definite, I 
mean ? ” she asked. 

“Yes, I’m afraid he has,” I admitted. 

“ My dear, dear child,” she whispered, taking my 
hand and looking at me with all her mother’s heart 
in her sweet eyes. “And you really care for 
him ? ” 

“Well, I think so,” I replied. 

“But you ought to be quite, quite sure,” she ex- 
claimed, quickly. “You know, my darling, that 
marriage is a very serious thing. It is for life. It is 
a matter about which you cannot think too long 
and too earnestly.” 

“We have seen a good deal of each other, you 
know, mother,” I replied. “It is not as if we had 
only known each other so long in London or even 
at Minchester. Here, living in the same house.” 

“ They are coming back, ” my mother broke in. 
“How quick they have been! And there is the 
bell.” 

We all went in together. There were a good 
many people staying in the hotel, though the 
American party had gone. Among them was a 


ENGAGED. 


*73 


bride and groom, unmistakably English, very stiff to 
every one else and very much wrapped up in each 
other. And they really were the very spooniest 
couple I had ever seen. I looked at them and 
wondered if I should ever feel inclined to look at 
Austin like that ? I think he divined something of 
what was passing through my mind. “I rather 
like to see it,” he murmured under his breath. 
“Do you think you will ever look at me like that, 
Nancy ? ” 

Now the same question had just' occurred to me, 
but when he put it to plain words, the answer came 
both to him and to my own heart like a flash of light- 
ning. “Never, oh, never!” I replied, decidedly. 

He laughed outright. “ I don’t believe you ever 
will,” he said, with a queer little smile playing 
about his lips. 

“Nor would you like it if I did,” I said quickly. 
“You would despise me in next to no time.” 

“ I should never despise you under any circum- 
stances, ” he said, very quietly — ‘ ‘ I have far too great 
a reason to do otherwise.” 

“How otherwise?” I asked, for girl-like I was 
proud of my new, nay, my first, lover, and liked to 
see my bear dance. 

He did not reply, but he turned and looked at me 
in a way so marked and with such a blaze in his 
eyes, that my own fell abashed before him. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A RECURRENCE. 

My father was very much astonished when Austin 
told him that he wanted to marry me ; and he was 
still more surprised when he gathered that I wanted 
to marry him. Austin fold me afterwards that he 
had declared me to be a mere child, much too young 
to dream of anything of that kind for years to 
come. 

Then Austin represented to him that I was by no 
means such a child as he fancied, that I was quite 
old enough to have fascinated him and that so far 
as he was concerned, the mischief was already done. 

The colonel said that he must see me and talk 
the affair over with me before he said a single word 
one way or another. And so the two came out on 
the terrace together, where mother and I were 
walking up and down, and father, dear Daddy, drew 
me on one side and tucking his hand under my 
arm, said — '‘My little woman, I want a word with 
you. What’s this I hear about you and Gray, eh ? ” 

“Well, Daddy, he’s very nice, don’t you think?” 
I returned, answering one question by another. 

“I don’t see anything that he ails,” admitted my 

*74 


A RECURRENCE. 


*75 

father, deliberately — “but that is not the chief 
question. Do you really want to marry him ? ” 

“Yes, if you haven’t any particular objection, 
Daddy,” I said, meekly. 

“ H’m, that means that you intend to, whether I 
have any objection or not. However, to be serious 
— Nancy, you are too young, too delicate, to think 
of marrying yet awhile. By the bye, do you — that 
is, have you told him anything about your clair- 
voyance ? ” 

“No, I’ve never mentioned it. I hate talking 
about it, and he might quite misunderstand it, 
and ” 

“My dear child,” said my father gravely, “if 
you have any idea in your mind that you will not 
be obliged to tell him that you are troubled in that 
way, you may as well dismiss it at once and for- 
ever. It would be impossible, it would be most dis- 
honorable. I could not, would not, be a party to 
anything of the kind.” 

“I don’t want to conceal it,” I replied, quickly. 
“But don’t you see how I hate talking about it. 
As it is, I always feel myself different to every one 
we know, which is perfectly horrid and annoys me 
beyond measure. But to tell some one of it myself, 
and some one to whom it might make all the 
difference in the world — why, I could not do it, 
Daddy, and that’s all about it.” 

“Then you don’t mind my telling him?” my 
father asked, in a greatly relieved tone. 

“Not at all; only, need you tell him quite every- 


76 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


thing that I have seen ? The fact that I am 
afflicted in this way may be more than enough to set 

him altogether against me ” but all the same, in 

my hearts of hearts, I did not think that it would 
do anything of the kind. 

“I’ll tell him the bare facts,” said father, 
promptly. 

We walked back together, and finding Austin 
alone on the terrace we all sauntered back again 
together, I walking between them. We said 
nothing out of the ordinary until we had reached 
the wall of the terrace, when father almost abruptly 
turned to Austin saying — “By the bye, Gray, there 
is one thing which you ought to know about Nancy 
here before another word is said of the future. She 
has the second-sight.” 

I am bound to admit that Austin nearly jumped 
out of his skin ! He gave such a start that my 
hand, which he had made prisoner within his own 
as soon as we came to a stand-still against the wall, 
was jerked quite away from him. He captured 
it again instantly — “ Forgive me,” he said, in an 
undertone. Then he turned to my father. “ Is 
that really so, sir ? ” he said, in the most incred- 
ulous tone. “ What do you mean by the second- 
sight ? ” 

My father moved uneasily. “ Well, she sees 
things that are happening elsewhere, through the 
medium of letters or any contact — and like all such 
mediums, the possession of this gift is a great trouble 
to her. That is why she has not told you about it 


A RECURRENCE. 


I 77 


before this. We have done everything we possibly 
could to prevent its becoming known, for it is a 
great nuisance. Why, a man actually had the 
impudence to come to the Warren one day to ask 
her to try and find out who had stolen some bonds 
of his. And, by Jove, he read me a lecture as long 
as my arm because I would not let her try the ex- 
periment. " 

“ You don't mean it ! " 

“Yes, I do. And he was a man whom I had 
never seen in all my life before, and did not trouble 
to get even a letter of introduction to me.” 

“But, Colonel Reynard, you don't mean to say, 
seriously, that you believe in it ? " Austin cried, 
more incredulously than ever. 

“ I did not use to believe in it," my father ad- 
mitted. “ But since Miss Nancy here has taken to 
manifestations in this way, it is quite impossible not 
to believe in it, and that profoundly. I only wish 
that I could disbelieve. I would if I could, I promise 
you." 

Austin turned and looked at me with a smile. 
“ And is that all which you have to urge against 
our engagement? " he asked. 

“ She is very young, too young," said my father 
half-regretfully. 

“ She will mend of that, sir," said Austin. 

“Yes, yes, I know, I know. Well, we must let 
it stand over for the present. At all events I must 
stand out for at least a year’s engagement. You 
clearly understand that ? ” 

12 


I 7 S 


A SE VEN7H CHILD. 


“Oh, yes, very clearly,” replied Austin, holding 
my hand fast within his own. 

“Well,” said my father, with a great sigh, “ I 
am going in. Don’t keep her out too long.” He 
just touched my shoulder as he passed and went in 
without ever seeming to think of making any more 
of a scene than that. You see we were not a par- 
ticularly demonstrative family, though we were all 
devotedly attached to each other. 

Austin drew away from the blaze of light which 
came from the hotel. “So it is all right,” he said. 
“ My darling, you are mine, all mine now. Let us 
sit here awhile. Tell me, Nancy, my own, you are 
glad that your father did not oppose me ? Yes, I 
know that you are glad, only I want to hear you 
say it again and again. Kiss me, Nancy, my own, 
my own.” 

Yes, I was happy, very, utterly happy, as we sat 
there in the soft Italian night, listening to the 
ripple of the lapping waters below the terrace, and 
talking of our love and planning what we should 
do in the glorious distant future. At last, Austin, 
after we had been sitting silent for some few minutes, 
broke the silence. 

“ My little one,” he said, “is it really true that 
you have this gift ? ” 

“Yes, Austin, it is quite true, unfortunately,” I 
said, simply. “ I only hope that when I am mar- 
ried it will see fit to leave me. It is a detestable 
distinction and has brought me nothing but trouble. 
I hate even to speak of it, ” 


A RECURRENCE. 


1 79 


“ Will it comfort you to know that I have no faith 
in it whatever? ” he asked. “ I don’t believe that 
such a thing exists at all.” 

“ I am glad you do think so,” I replied, “ I only 
hope that I shall never convert you.” 

“ You have felt no such experience with me ? ” 

“ No. I have seen nothing since I have known 
you.” 

“And. you would have done — I mean you have 
naturally been deeply interested in me, if I may say 
so, without seeming too conceited.” 

“Yes, I have thought of you a great deal. Oh, 
Austin dear, if you love me, pray that I may never 
see anything out of the ordinary again, pray with 
all your might. I shall bless you all my life. I 
shall love you ten thousand times more if you are 
able to break this spell which saps my very life. 
Dear, say that you will do this for me.” 

“ My darling, I will wish and wish and wish as 
long as I have my consciousness, that I promise 
you.” And I was so overcome by emotion that I 
could not speak, or do aught but humbly bend and 
kiss the hand which held my own. 

He spoke again presently. “Do you know, my 
own,” he said — he seemed to be never tired of im- 
pressing the fact upon me that I was his, of making 
me feel that I had become one of his possessions — 
“ I thought it was your sister who had this wonder- 
ful reputation.” 

“ My sister — Eve ! ” I exclaimed. 

“Yes, Eve,” he replied. 


j8o a seventh child. 

“ But how did you know anything at all about it ? ” 
I asked, in the utmost astonishment. 

“ Did not you tell me of it ? ” he asked in turn. 

“No, I am sure I never did. We never speak of 
it, if we can possibly help it. We make it a rule. I 
am sure I never told you one word about it. I 
am as sure as I am that I am living at this mo- 
ment. ” 

“Then some one must have told me. Possibly I 
heard it during the few days that I was at Minchester. 

I must have heard you spoken of as a family, and 
have recalled it to mind somehow or other, by one 
of those strange freaks of connection by which our 
brains do contrive to link certain events and persons 
together. Is it known at Minchester ? ” 

“ Known, oh, yes, too well for my peace and com- 
fort. You should see them talking about me when I 
go to a dance. It’s too horrid — I can almost hear 
what they say. ‘ Who’s the girl in the pink frock ? 
Rather pretty, eh? You might introduce me, old 
chap ; do you a good turn when I get the chance, 
yes, by Jove ! ’ And then the other moon-faced 
booby says — ‘Ah, ya’as — that’s Miss Reynard. 
Ah, something a bit queer about her, sort of witch, 
don't you know. Only has to look at you to tell 
you whether you paid for your boots, or when you’re 
going to be hanged for murdering your great-aunt’s 
tomcat ! By Jove, I shouldn't advise you to risk 
it, old chappie.’ And generally, the old chappie 
does not risk it, but sheers off and stands in a corner 
for the rest of the evening, staring at me as if he 


A RECURRENCE. 


181 

expects me to suddenly mount a broomstick and fly 
away to the moon/’ I ended, in dire disgust. 

Austin laughed heartily over this recital of my 
woes, but all the same he drew me to him and held 
me protectingly against his side. “Poor little 
woman ! it is hard for you, ” he murmured, soothingly. 
“But there, never mind, perhaps you won’t be 
troubled in that way any more. We must get the 
colonel to let us be married as soon as possible and 
not to stand out for that year of which he spoke just 
now. I should say that when you are married to an 
unbelieving Philistine like myself, you will have less 
and less of these disagreeable manifestations. And 
you know, I must keep to my original belief that 
there is no such thing, and that mere coincidences 
have been developed into apparent facts. When I 
have really seen you do something about which 
there can be no dispute I may believe in it, but not 
before, certainly not before.” 

“I am not at all anxious to convince you, ” I 
declared, laughing a little. “ My most sincere wish 
is that I may never know my power again. If I 
thought that I was sure of that, I should be as 
happy a girl as you would find on the earth to- 
day.” 

I really did feel that I was more free from my 
power than I had been for years, and I rejoiced to 
find that my future husband was so sceptical on the 
subject. I was sure that the very fact of his being 
so would protect me against, at least, any fostering 
of my gift. 


182 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


All the same I had reckoned somewhat without my 
host, for within a week of my engagement being a 
settled thing, a singularly strange manifestation 
came to me. It happened that we were sitting, 
Austin and I, on the terrace, in our favorite seat, 
talking of what we would do in time to come, when 
all at once, I held out my hand and said — “Frank 
— Frank — you mustn’t do that It will go off. 
you’ll be killed to a certainty ! ” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


MISS LORENZI. 

I don’t know whether I have explained already 
that my brother Frank was just fifteen months older 
than I was. He had chosen the navy as his profes- 
sion, somewhat against the wishes of both our 
father and mother. You see, mother was used to 
the army and it seemed a perfectly natural thing 
for her boys to go in for that and to follow in their 
father’s footsteps ; while, to her, the navy seemed 
a cruelly unnatural kind of life, with many hard- 
ships and dangers which had not their corresponding 
advantages. To father, on the other hand, the navy 
seemed a sheer waste of a smart young fellow, who 
might reasonably look for advancement in the 
sister-service. However, nothing would serve Frank 
but the navy and so into the navy he went, getting 
a nomination from an old friend of father’s, who 
was one of the sea-lords, and, of course, carried 
such things about in his pocket, ready to give away 
to the young sons of his old friends. 

But that was a longtime ago ; Frank was twenty 
at the time of which I am speaking, and afinestrap- 
ping young fellow, very like what dear old Tom 

^3 


184 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


was at his age. For some time he had been with 
the Mediterranean fleet, but since we had been 
abroad, he had been transferred to one of the guard- 
ships off the East Coast. On the whole, Frank had 
not been pleased at the change ; he loved the gay 
life which seemed to follow the Fleet wherever it 
went, and we fancied that on the guardship he found 
himself very small potatoes indeed, though, as 
father said, it was a good thing for him if he was 
so. 

Well, on that particular evening, when Austin 
and I were sitting out on the terrace at Naples, I 
suddenly saw Frank just in front of me. It seemed 
as if I was no longer at Naples but in a narrow 
street and in a half light. It looked like an English 
street, and I saw Frank, wearing uniform, and an- 
other young man with him, come along quite 
slowly and as if they were not going anywhere 
definite, but were sauntering round to see what they 
could see. They had come about half down the 
street towards me, when I noticed something like a 
parcel lying just under the wall of a large house, 
and from which smoke was coming. The man with 
Frank pointed it out, and Frank immediately went 
towards it, as if to look at it more closely. The 
other tried to pull him back, but Frank wrenched 
himself free of him and tried to stamp out the fuse 
which was steadily burning. It was then that I 
involuntarily called out to him as if he had been 
close to me. . . . The next moment there was a 
burst of flame and smoke and then everything was 


Miss lorenzi. 


iSs 

hidden from my sight by dense volumes of smoke 
rising to the very skies ! 

When I came back to myself, Austin was holding 
me in his arms and several ladies were trying to 
restore me from what I knew must have been along 
faint. I struggled up and looked at the people 
around us. “ Did I faint? It was very stupid of 
me,” and then a remembrance of what had hap- 
pened came back to me and I am afraid I was weak 
enough to go into hysterics. 

To my dying day I shall never forget what fol- 
lowed. Austin took hold of my arm and told me in 
a steady measured sort of voice that I was to stop 
making that noise immediately. “You can stop 
this minute, if you choose,” he said sternly. “And 
you must choose to do it at once. Do you hear me, 
Nancy ? ” 

And the queerest thing of all was that I did stop, 
almost on the instant. I sat up and some one 
brought some water which Austin held to my lips, 
saying “Drink a little.” I drank it as if I had been 
some wooden dummy. A lady near took hold of 
my hand and began to stroke it gently down, but 
Austin stopped her saying firmly, “Don’t coddle 
her, please ; it will only make her feel more inclined 
to give way and I know she hates making a scene 
like this. Now, Nancy, do you think you could 
walk up and down a little ? ” 

His suggestion was put in the form of a request, 
but I could not have disobeyed the implied com- 
mand if my very life and soul had depended on it 


86 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


I, with his help, got on my feet and began to move 
slowly along, feeling as if my legs were made of 
pith and my brain was like the tide, on the ebb and 
flow. Austin held his arm round me and supported 
me along until I really began to feel less wobbling 
than I had done on first getting up. I heard some 
one whisper as we moved away from the seat — 
“What a brute! Poor girl, it will be but a sorry 
time she'll have with him.” Yet, I did not feel that 
Austin was hard or brutal at all. . . . He was quite 
right when he said that I hated making scenes, I did 
hate anything of the kind and I loved him better 
than I had ever done for being sensible enough to 
save me from making one then, and by so doing 
frightening my mother almost out of her senses. 

As we drew near to the place where we had been 
sitting, he stopped and asked me if I would have an- 
other taste of water, and when I said yes, two ladies 
asked me if I was feeling better ? 

Austin answered for me. “ Oh, yes, she is much 
better, are you not, dearest ? ” 

“Oh, yes, very much better,” I replied. 

“ The fact is,” Austin continued, “Miss Reynard 
was upset by something and is most anxious that 
her mother should not know that she was ill. Mrs. 
Reynard is not in very good health and is easily 
depressed, so please do not speak of this.” 

“Oh, but don’t you think Mrs. Reynard ought to 
know ? ” a lady began, when I broke in. 

“ Please do not say anything to my mother about 
it,” I said eagerly. “She has been in such bad 


MISS LORENZ I. 


87 


health since my brother died out in India last year 
and it would do no good. I will go in and tell old 
nurse about it. She will know just what to do for 
me . . . though indeed, there is nothing to be 

done. I got a little upset, that was all. I think I 
will go in now, Austin,” I added, turning to him. 

We did go in and I found old nurse and told her 
all that I had seen. “ My lamb,” she said, for she 
still kept to the old terms of endearment, “say 
never a word to the dear mistress till Mr. Gray has 
sent a telegram home to find out if aught has hap- 
pened amiss to Master Frank. You don’t seem to 
have seen the actual happening, not. as you did 
when our dear Master Tom was taken. Don’t delay 
a minute, sir; send a message off and find out how 
things are with him. Eh, but I doubt the dear mis- 
tress has a heavy blow waiting for her.” 

“I’ll send off at once,” said Austin, “but from 
whom shall I send it ? If I put my own name, the 
people who get my wire may say, ‘What the deuce 
has this fellow got to do with it ? ’ And if I send in 
your father’s name, the answer will naturally come 
to him and so the shock be worse to them both than 
if we had told them what had happened. ” 

“Then send in my name and tell the people not 
to send the answer in as if it was quite an ordinary 
thing,” I suggested. “If necessary tell the land- 
lord just what has happened.” 

“Good. I’ll go and send it off at once. But 
mind, Nancy, so far, I don’t believe there is anything 
in it. It was nothing but imagination, nothing else.” 


i88 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


“And you will never know how earnestly I hope 
and pray you may prove to be right/’ I said, as he 
departed. 

But Austin did not prove to be right. The answer 
came in due course and he brought it to me in our 
sitting-room where I was lying on the sofa, old 
nurse sitting beside me. “Now, my child,” Austin 
said, coming cheerfully in . . . “ here is the answer. 
Shall I open it or will you ? ” 

“You do it,” I returned, for I began to feel sick 
and queer again, and the room began to spin slowly 
round me. 

He tore open the envelope and glanced hastily 
over the contents of the enclosure, uttering an as- 
tonished “By Jove,” as he did so. “No, don’t 
look so alarmed, my darling,” he said hurriedly. . . . 
“ It’s not so bad as you think. Your brother has 
had the kind of danger you feared, but he was 
scarcely hurt at all by the accident. Here, read the 
telegram for yourself.” He held the paper out to 
me and I took it. It was quite long for a telegram, 
and ran thus : 

“Partly true. Was in explosion but not hurt. 
On no account let mother be frightened. Am 
writing. — Frank. ” 

The relief was simply enormous, and I had to cry 
a little on nurse’s shoulder before I could collect 
myself enough to comment on the more than wel- 
come message. 


MISS LORENZ I 


1 89 

“What a lucky thing that mother and the colonel 
went on that expedition to-day,” I managed to say at 
last. 

“Yes; I suppose you will tell them about this 
when they get home,” remarked Austin. 

I looked up at him in astonishment. “Why, 
Austin, we none of us ever kept anything from 
mother in all our lives,” I exclaimed. “Of course 
I shall tell her about it. She would never forgive 
me if I did not. And you see,” I added, in an un- 
dertone, ‘ ‘ I was right about it. I have never been 
wrong yet, never.” 

“Yet you have seen nothing to warn you against 
me,” he said teasingly. 

“My lamb, would you like a cup of nice fresh 
tea ? ” a$ked nurse, at that moment. Nurse had a 
code of manners quite her own. When any of us ailed 
anything, she invariably addressed us in the way in 
which she had been accustomed to address us in the 
old days of our childhood. On ordinary occasions, 
she called us by the prefix of master or miss. 

“I should like some tea, Nurse,” I replied. And 
she, dear old soul that she was, went bustling out 
of the room to see after it. 

“You didn’t answer my remark,” said Austin, 
holding my hand and looking searchingly at me. 

“No, of course not. You know there is nothing 
to find out about you,” I said, laughing in return. 
“But, depend upon it, I should have been sure to 
find it out if there had been. I am a most uncanny 
person to know.” 


190 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


It was nearly an hour after this that my father and 
mother came home. They had been on a curio- 
hunting expedition to a little town a few miles from 
Naples, where, as Austin had consolingly told them 
on leaving, they might reasonably expect to be 
stabbed in the back with a knife, for the mere offence 
of possessing a little more of this world's goods than 
their neighbors for the time being. However, they 
came triumphantly back all safe and sound and 
laden with treasures, all immense bargains, of 
course. 

I broke the news to mother in the gentlest possible 
way, so as not to alarm her, telling her at the be- 
ginning that I had something to tell her, but that she 
had no need to be alarmed. “You have been 
seeing again,” she exclaimed nervously. 

“Dear mother, you need not be frightened. . . . 
Austin sent a wire home at once and all is well ; 
what I saw was terrifying, but Frank has come to 
no harm.” I then told her everything, except that 
I had fainted and half-scared Austin and every one 
out of their wits. 

I scarcely know how it was but I soon found out 
that Austin was very far from popular among the 
people staying in the hotel. I might have been 
wrong, of course, but somehow, I could not help 
thinking that it was chiefly on account of his firmness 
in dealing with my threatened attack of hysterics 
which had prejudiced every one against him. And, 
really, when you come to think of it, a more silly 
objection could not possibly have been taken to any 


MISS LOKENZI. 


191 

man in the world. But then most people are more 
or less prejudiced by foolish things, and the people 
whom we knew at Naples were evidently no ex- 
ception to the usual run of other people in that 
respect. Up to that time we had all been very 
friendly together, not intimate, but still friendly 
enough to sometimes make excursions together and 
to tell one another where we had been and what we 
had bought. 

But now, all that was changed. Whenever 
Austin joined any group, it somehow melted away, 
and whenever I was walking with him I used to 
catch such glances of dislike and apprehension that 
I was first annoyed and then intensely amused 
thereby. Austin himself too noticed it. “I don’t 
know what’s amiss with the people here,” he said 
to me one day. “ They’re a most unsociable, odd, 
three-cornered sort of lot, and they do cast such 
sour looks at me that I feel I shall have to do some- 
thing to justify the character they’ve evidently given 

„ _ >y 

me. 

“ Oh, you need not trouble to do that,” I returned 
with a laugh, “they have already got the some- 
thing. ” 

“But what in the wide world have I done to 
offend their high and mightinesses ? ” he demanded, 
with a perfectly astonished face. 

“Well, I don’t really know, because, of course, 
not a soul has dared to say a single word to me on 
the subject, but I think — and I feel quite sure that 
I’m right — that you upset them all by being so sharp 


1Q2 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


with me that day when I saw that affair with Frank. 
If you had gone off your ftead and coddled me up 
and let me get a good downright fit of hysterics, 
they would have thought you the perfection of a 
sweetheart. Now I, on the contrary, who simply 
loathe giving way to weakness and should have 
hated myself if I had made a scene, think you quite 
perfection as you are. You cannot please every one 
in this world.” 

‘‘No, by Jove, and that’s true,” he exclaimed, 

vexedly. “On my word I’d like to But there, 

what’s the good even of saying what I would like to 
do? You are satisfied that what I did was for the 
best and all the others may go to perdition for aught 
I care to the contrary. Yet it seems hard that a 
man should be branded as a kind of double-distilled 
brute, because he does the only sensible thing that 
is to be done in a case of emergency.” 

“Oh, what does it matter what these people 
think ? They are nothing to us or we to them, and, 
for my part, I never want to be anything to them. 
Next week we go home, and we shall probably never 
meet again. I am sure I hope not. By the bye, I 
brought down those photographs that I promised to 
show you. Let us look at them now.” 

I had been so long spending a greater part of my 
life in moving about that I had never possessed an 
album in which to keep the few portraits without 
which I did not care to go anywhere. Instead of 
that I had a neat leather box, with my initials em- 
blazoned on one side in gold. This was just of a 


MISS LORENZ I. 


J 9 3 


size to hold about twenty cabinet portraits, and 
these I turned out for his edification. The first one 
that he took up was a splendid likeness of our dear 
Tom. “That’s a good-looking chap,” he said, as he 
looked at it. 

“That’s Tom, my dear brother — the one who 
died last year,” I said. “Is he not handsome? 
And he was such a dear, dear boy ; you don’t know 
what it was to us to lose him.” 

It was very strange, but, as I spoke, the well- 
known white mist began to form in front of my eyes 
and I felt myself slipping off into the state in which 
I always saw things. Slowly a vision pieced itself 
together before me and I became aware that I was 
once more, looking on a familiar scene, that of Mr. 
Warrender’s quarters in Danford Barracks. 

“Yes, it must have been an awful shock to you,” 
said Austin, at that moment. He spoke in cool, un- 
concerned conventional tones, and that somehow 
put my vision entirely to flight. For the first time 
in all my life, I had seen a vision without attempt- 
ing to communicate it to those about me and, 
indeed, without my companion being aware that I 
was affected in that way. The feeling was most 
strange to me. I felt as if my heart was weighed 
down by a mighty secret, and yet for worlds I could 
not have revealed it to Austin. He went on talking 
and asking questions and making remarks about the 
photographs, and was quite unconscious that any- 
thing out of the ordinary run of events had happened 
to me. 


194 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


It was only a couple of days after this that my 
people somewhat suddenly decided to start on our 
journey homewards. We had got as far as Milan 
and determined to stay there for a few days, as we 
had fallen in with some charming friends whom we 
had met several years before while staying on the 
Riviera. These people, a Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone, 
with two young daughters and a pleasant friend 
who was travelling with them, were quite overjoyed 
to see us again and begged us not to go on, as we 
had intended to do, but to put in a few days and talk 
the past over again. 

My father and mother consented, and so we lin- 
gered for a while longer under the pleasant Italian 
skies and made excursions to various points of in- 
terest in company with each other. And the last 
night, just after dinner, we were all sitting in the 
great entrance of the hotel taking our coffee and 
chatting, when the lady who was travelling with 
the Johnstones — by name, Miss Lorenzi, said to me 
suddenly, “ Miss Reynard, you are a clairvoyante.” 

I was so taken aback that I stammered out a faint 
admittal of the impeachment, though I could have 
bitten my tongue off as soon as the words had 
passed my lips. “But what makes you say so?” 
I asked, trying to hide my vexation. 

“Because I felt what Mr. Gray was thinking 
through you,” she replied. “Of course, you have 
the look of a clairvoyante, but until a moment ago 
I was not sure of it. ” 

“And what was I thinking of? ” Austin demanded. 


MISS LORENZ I 


J 95 

“Oh, a clairvoyante has no right to publish the 
thoughts of others,” she said quite gravely. 

“ Give me a clue,” he urged. 

“I will. You were thinking of some one in 
India,” said Miss Lorenzi, without the least hesi- 
tancy. 

“ By Jove, so I was,” he exclaimed. Then turned 
to me. “ Dearest,” he said, “I yield to you._ I am 
more than convinced. But how do you account 
for this, that although Miss Reynard and I have 
been — and very naturally — thrown a great deal 
together during the last few weeks she has never 
seen anything unusual about me, has never once 
been influenced in any way by me? If she were a 
true clairvoyante, would she not by this time have 
discovered everything about me that has ever 
happened ? Would she not have told my thoughts 
sometimes ? ” 

Miss Lorenzi turned and looked fixedly at him. 
“Do you know anything about the second-sight ? ” 
she asked rather abruptly. “ I should imagine not, 
but, do you ? ” 

“Not a single thing,” replied Austin, “that is, 
excepting what I have gathered from Miss Reynard 
here. Why do you ask ? ” 

‘ ‘ I had a reason, ” she replied. * ‘ Well, it is evident 
to me that you do not know the subject, for if you 
had, you would know, first of anything, that a clair- 
voyante cannot see anything for herself . ” 


CHAPTER XIX. 



AT HOME ! 

Yes, that was what Miss Lorenzi said — “A 
clairvoyante cannot see anything for herself ! ” No- 
body spoke for a moment, and I sat staring at her 
like one fascinated. I seemed to know she was 
right, for she spoke with the solemn and pronounced 
manner of one who knew intimately what she was 
talking about. 

It was Austin who first broke the silence. “I 
think,” he said, “that we don’t any of us quite 
follow you. How do you mean cannot see for her- 
self?” 

“Just in this way,” Miss Lorenzi replied. “Miss 
Nancy here is a clairvoyante — she is engaged to you, 
and perhaps because she sees nothing of your inner 
life she may imagine that you have no inner life to 
see, that you are all fair and above-board and that 
there are no stories in your past which ” How- 

ever, there she broke off short and looked at him. 
Austin went perfectly livid, but he tried to laugh off 
the effect of her words. 

“Really, Miss Lorenzi, you are most flattering; 

you ” 

196 


A T HOME ! 


i 97 


“Stay/' said she quietly. “I never said that 
there were any stories in your past into which you 
would not like your friends to inquire ; I never said 
that you had an inner life or that all was not fair 
and above-board. You jump to conclusions too 
quickly.” 

He calmed down instantly. “No, no more you 
did. But your manner seemed to imply as much, 
and to tell the truth, that is the one point upon which 
I am touchy. I beg your pardon. ” 

Miss Lorenzi smiled and said there was no occa- 
sion for that, and we by common, though tacit con- 
sent, began to talk of other things. We separated 
soon after and, though we breakfasted together the 
following morning, we did not in any way revert to 
the subject which had seemed so inclined to be un- 
fortunate the previous evening. 

I am sure that Austin was very glad to be free 
from any further chance of discussing that particular 
subject with Miss Lorenzi. We had a compartment 
to ourselves, and naturally mother and the colonel 
sat at one end and Austin and I sat at the other, 
thus occupying the four corners. We had not been 
more than half an hour or so on our way, when 
Austin asked me if I had felt anything of Miss 
Lorenzi’s power of clairvoyance ? 

‘ ‘ I mean, does she strike you as being clair- 
voyant ? ” 

“No, not particularly,” I replied. “Why, what 
makes you ask ? ” 

“I wanted to know, that was all. You know, I 


198 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


don't believe she was right in what she said about 
no clairvoyant being able to see for herself. Do 
you ? ” 

“I don’t know. She spoke as if she knew what 
she was talking about,” I returned. “But why 
worry about it ? I don’t believe you have a past, 
Austin, and it does not matter if any one else does, 
does it ? ” 

“Oh, but it’s not that; it’s not that at all,” he 
said quickly. “ Of course, it is horrid to feel that a 
doubt may have been put into your mind and that 
may blossom and bear fruit some day. Besides, 
your father and mother may feel that they don’t 
know enough of me. 

My dear boy,” I replied, in the same undertone 
in which he had spoken, “I wouldn’t trouble 
about that, if I were you. If my father has even 
the faintest shadow of a doubt, he won’t in the least 
hesitate to ask you to explain every circumstance of 
your life right up to the present time.” 

“But I’ve knocked about the world so much ” 

“Nonsense! You can give him a dozen refer- 
ences, any one of which will be enough to set any 
lingering doubt he might have at rest. You can 
tell him who your schoolmaster was ” 

“I was educated at Harrow,” he said, in rather 
an offended voice. 

“ How odd that I should never have asked you or 
you have told me where you were educated,” I cried, 
with a laugh. “ Well, then, you can tell whose time 
and whose house you were in. And you can give 


A T HOME ! 


i 99 


him the name of your vicar — and your banker and 
the colonel of your regiment — why, there are heaps 
of people to whom you can refer him. Don’t give 
a second thought to that Miss Loren zi. I believe 
she is nothing but a fraud. Yes, I do really, for I 
feel sure I should have known it in some way if she 
had been as I am." 

“You really think so ? ” 

“Yes, I do really. I feel sure of it. Oh, don’t 
think about her any more. By the bye, did she give 
you the clue to what you were thinking of? ’’ 

“Yes, she did." 

“Ah, well, I dare say she is to a certain extent 
clairvoyant, a sort of medium ; but I have never 
been able to tell people what they are thinking 
about, and I don’t believe I ever shall be able to do 
so. Let us talk about other things. I wonder, yes, 
I do wonder very much how you will like my 
sisters. " 

“Your sisters . . . that is Mrs. Dagenham 

and " 

“And Eve. Eve is charming. I think you saw 
Madge’s portrait the other day. It was among those 
that I showed you." 

“And why did you not show me Eve’s portrait ? " 
he asked. 

“ For a very good and excellent reason, because 
Eve has never had her photograph taken." 

“Not really?" he cried, in great astonishment 
“And is she — I mean is there any reason why she 
should not have had her photograph taken ? ” 


200 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ Not at all. Eve is very good-looking, very much 
better looking than I,” I replied. “No, but she is 
not like the ordinary run of girls, she hates the idea 
of having it taken, and consequently it has never 
been done. They are both quite out of the com- 
mon run, my sisters ; at least, they both were till 
Madge got a baby . . . that did turn her head 

a bit, but I should think that will wear off after a 
while, when she gets more used to it. ” 

“Why, is she so fond of this baby ? ” he asked. 
“She adores it,” I replied solemnly. “Fond is 
no word, unless you choose to use it in another 
sense. Still, they are both charming, and I should 
not be a bit surprised if you fall over head and ears 
in love with Eve, not a bit/’ 

“ I shall not do that,” he said, without in any way 
reciprocating my gay tone. “Your sister may be 
the most beautiful woman in the world, but all the 
beauty that ever I saw could not possess the attrac- 
tion for me that you do, my Nancy. Don’t you 
understand that ? ” 

I suppose I did or thought that I did, which 
amounted to pretty much the same thing, for the 
time being at least. So I smiled back at him and 
told him in various ways that I was delighted to 
hear that it was so, and added that I hoped it would 
always be the same with him. 

“ My little Nancy,’' he said, taking my hand un- 
der cover of a week-old newspaper, “ you seem to 
have a few doubts of my constancy, but never to 
have any of your own. How do you know that 


A T HOME ! 


201 


you may not entirely change your mind and give 
me the go-by ? ” 

“I don’t think so,” I said wisely. “ It is possible, 
of course, but I think it is very improbable.” 

He seemed to be convinced ; at all events, he 
said no more on the subject, and we discussed en- 
tirely different things until we arrived at Turin, 
where we intended to remain for a couple of days. 
I liked Turin exceedingly, though several people had 
told us that it was not worth our while to break our 
journey there. We did so, because my mother was 
not very strong, and the colonel thought it would in 
every way be better and easier for her if we took 
a week or so on the way, than if we rushed through 
in a single day. 

We did not fag much at sight-seeing. We had 
seen so many picture-galleries and old churches 
that we did not any of us care about seeing any 
more. So we walked about the streets and drove 
around the environs, half inclined to wish that we 
were going up among the snows of the everlasting 
Alps, instead of going home to the commonplace 
life of an English country town. However, we 
had promised those who were at home that we 
would be back by a certain date, and we had prac- 
tically no choice than to steadily turn our faces 
homewards. 

We left Turin early in the morning, having stayed 
there two nights, and, just at the last minute, 
mother said she would rather go straight through to 
Paris, and as father had no choice in the matter 


202 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


other than for her comfort, he decided at once to do 
so. I firmly believe that she had an eye to her 
presents and wanted to have every available moment 
for choosing them in the gay city where good Amer- 
icans go when they die. 

So we went from Turin straight to Paris, and for 
my part I was very very glad to find myself there. 
“I propose we come to Paris for our honeymoon, 
Austin/' I said to my sweetheart, when we were 
sauntering along the Boulevard des Italiens the 
morning after our arrival. 

“It wouldn’t be half a bad idea,” he replied. 
“That is, if the colonel really does insist on our 
waiting a whole year, which, by the by, between 
ourselves, Nancy, is a fearful nuisance. Tut if he 
gives in and gracefully consents to our getting mar- 
ried in July or August, why, Paris will be simply 
out of the question.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” I said regretfully, feeling 
half inclined to wish for a minute that my father 
might hold out for the last time . . . “ Oh, do stop, 
I must look in this window. Oh, look at this, Aus- 
tin, did you ever see anything so charming as 
that ? ’ 

The object of my admiration was a small bronze 
of great beauty, lightness and delicacy, a mere trifle, 
yet one which struck the eye and arrested the atten- 
tion where many a more important subject would 
have failed to do so. 

As he did not answer, I looked round, just in 
time to see him putting his hat on his head again, 


A T HOME ! 


203 


having evidently taken it off in order to salute some 
one passing by. “ Was that some one you know ? ” 
I asked. 

“Oh, no one in particular,” he replied. “Only 
an Army man I know slightly. He saw that I was 
with a lady.” 

“ What is his name ? ” I asked, watching the man 
walking briskly along. 

“His name? Well, on my word, I forget,”’ said 
Austin, turning back to look in the window again. 
“One meets so many fellows mixed up with the 
Service at one time or other, you know, and it’s 
quite impossible to remember them all. By the bye, 
Nancy, what were you looking at just now and ad- 
miring so rapturously ? ” 

I pointed out the little bronze, and Austin, after 
looking at it for a minute or so, said . . . “My 
dear child, you have as pretty a taste in art as any 
one could wish. Let us go in and see if it is within 
our means. I should like you to have it. ” 

“Notifies too expensive,” was my warning, as 
we passed the shop. 

However, he decided that it was quite within his 
means and bought it. As a matter of fact, it was 
about seven pounds, and I thought it rather an ex- 
travagance, but Austin quite pooh-poohed the idea 
and told me it was mine. “ Let us take a victoria 
back,” he said, when we got out on to the boulevard 
again. 

“ But, my dear boy, we have only just come out,” 
I expostulated, for I had no notion of coming to 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


204 

Paris for a few days to stay stuck in a stupid hotel 
all the time. 

“Oh, well, let us go for a little drive first,” he 
suggested. “I don’t feel like walking about much 
to-day. The sun is so fearfully hot. Let us go to 
the Madeleine and get some flowers. All women 
want to go and buy flowers when they come to 
Paris.” 

I agreed to this and he hailed a victoria which 
was passing by. We drove away in the direction 
of the Madeleine, and then I chanced to look 
at him. “Have you a headache, Austin?” I 
asked. 

“ No. Why, what makes you ask ? ” 

“ Because you are so white and you look so . . . 
so . . . done up,” I returned. 

“To tell you the truth I feel so,” said he, “and 
I cannot think why I should, for I have had a most 
tremendously easy time of late. I shall be all right 
presently. Besides, you know, dearest, Paris is es- 
sentially a place to live luxuriously in, and Shanks’s 
nag is not the most luxurious mode of transport 
that can be imagined.” 

Of course, his explanation was a perfectly reason- 
able one and his color came back before we reached 
the Madeleine, so that I did not then give another 
thought to the incident but applied myself to the 
business in hand of buying flowers and fruit. 

We were rather reckless about victorias during 
the rest of the time we were in Paris, and really 
I too was glad of it, for Paris was fearfully hot 


A T HOME ! 


^05 

although it was only April. Still, heat or no heat, 
we had a lovely time and I enjoyed every minute 
of it. 

We stayed five days in Paris and then crossed to 
London, where we put up at father's favorite hotel 
and prepared for a few days of theatre-going, with 
a visit or two to the tailor’s on his part. 

I did enjoy London, even more than Paris, only 
when we were in Paris I thought that I enjoyed it 
more than I had ever done London, so perhaps 
there was very little to be said for the state of my 
taste at that particular time. For one thing, Austin 
had preferred to wait till we got to London before 
he bought me any jewelry. Even my engagement 
ring he had sent to London for ; for, as he said, when 
you were dealing with London tradespeople for 
things about which you understood nothing, you 
were tolerably safe. And he did give me such a lot 
of presents during those few days, I more than once 
felt obliged to cry “ Hold, enough,” which is not 
the usual way with young girls, who love pretty 
things just as much as any one else. 

And we did fill those few days, as full as ever they 
would go. I seemed to live through a lifetime and I 
liked Austin better every day that went by. And, you 
know, there were times when I was not so sure of my 
own feelings, at least not exactly that, but there were 
times when I could not for the life of me think of 
anything to say next. Now and again it would 
occur to me that there must be something wrong 
about me or about him or about us both, for it 


2o6 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


seemed so unnatural for two people who were sup- 
posed to be madly in love with each other — an old 
phrase of Madge’s, by the bye — to sit for ever so 
long without speaking, for the girl to be racking her 
brains for a suitable subject of conversation and for 
the man to say suddenly, apropos of nothing at 
all, “I beg your pardon, my darling, what did 
you say ? ” . . . thus showing plainly that 

his thoughts had been for ever so long far far 
away. 

Of course, these occasions were not frequent, but 
when they did happen, they always worried me 
dreadfully. You see I could only go back for the 
etiquette of deportment at such a time to my eldest 
sister’s behavior under similar circumstances. Now 
Madge, no matter who the man of the moment might 
be, never seemed to be in want of a subject to talk 
to him on. I have seen Madge go away down the 
garden with that stiff gaby, James Allistair, talking 
as fast as ever her tongue could slip off the words. 
I am sure that James Allistair never had a word to 
throw at a dog, but he always had plenty to say to 
her, plenty and to spare. 

However, I never wanted for words during the 
time that we were in London, never. And as I said 
before, I thoroughly enjoyed our stay from begin- 
ning to end. 

And at last we left dear London behind us and 
were fairly started on our journey homewards. You 
know, it is a long journey from London to Minches- 
ter. The weather was hot and trying, and I was 


A T HOME ! 


207 

very, very glad when I found that we were drawing 
near our destination. 

“I cannot tell you how glad I shall be to get 
home,” I said to Austin. 

“You are tired?” he said, gently. “I quite 
expect that you will laugh at me, Nancy, when I 
confess to you that I am getting quite nervous at 
the idea of meeting all your people.” 

“ But there is no such great all,” I replied, laugh- 
ing at the notion of any one being nervous at the 
thought of meeting my two dear sisters and dear 
old Geoffrey Dagenham. “Certainly, nothing to 
be nervous about. They are all charming and will 
be delighted to meet you. Besides, it is not as if 
it were my father or mother — then you might have 
an excuse to feel nervous. But the others have 
no real say in the matter. And, of course, you 
did see Dick in town.” 

“Yes, but it is an awful ordeal.” 

“Not a bit more than if you were taking me to 
meet your people,” I declared. 

“ But, practically, I have no people,” he returned, 
“ and charming and happy as family life is, there 
are advantages attached to the fact of being almost 
relationless. Especially, when one is about to be 
married.” 

Oh, I don’t mind your having no near relations,” 
I said, smiling, “you will be the more able to value 
mine. Why, here we are. How quickly the last 
little bit has gone by. ” 

“There’s Geoffrey on the platform .... 


208 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


and Madge,” said the colonel at that moment. 
“ Hollo,” he called out, as he let down the window. 
“Hi, here we are. How are you ? ” 

In a moment Madge had rushed up to the carriage 
and without waiting for any of us to alight, jumped 
up and caught mother in her arms. 

“My dear, dear mother,” she cried ; then turned 
to me. . . . “Why, Nancy, I have never seen you 
look so blooming in all my life. And this is Mr. 
Gray. How are you ? I’m delighted to see you.” 

And then we all got out and stood in a group on 
the platform while our luggage was being put 
together. We had sent most of it down on our 
arrival in London so that we had only our town 
luggage with us, not to mention many cardboard 
boxes containing recent purchases in the way of 
clothing. 

“ We brought the break over,” Madge continued, 
“ for we thought we might find you so hung around 
with parcels that we could not possibly get into 
either the stanhope or into the flies. Come, dear,” 
putting her hand under mother’s arm, “let us leave 
the others to do the best they can.” 

We all drove back to the Warren together, and I 
saw that Austin was immensely taken by my sister, 
and also that Madge and Geoffrey were very much 
pleased with him. This alone was highly satis- 
factory, for it is pleasant to find that your choice 
has been justified, particularly by those whose 
opinion you value. 

“ By the bye, why did not Eve come to meet 


A T HOME ! 


209 


us ? ” I asked, as we turned in at the gate of the 
Warren. 

“She has had a dreadful cold the last few days, 
and though she is better, ” Madge replied, “ I per- 
suaded her that she had best stay at home, for you 
know what a draughty place the station is, and you 
might have been ever so long getting your things 
together. ” 

As she spoke a turn in the drive brought us within 
sight of the house and I saw Eve, with a white 
lace wrap round her head, come hastily out into 
the porch. In a moment we had drawn up at the 
door, and the next instant I was clasped in my 
sister’s arms. 

For a minute or two all was confusion and a per- 
fect babel of tongues, the servants all came out, and 
there was a general handshaking and greeting. 
Then I turned to see what had become of Austin, 
fearing that he would feel left out in the cold, when 
I found that he was staring straight at Eve, the very 
picture of uncanny fascination ! 

14 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE INEVITABLE. 

When I saw how Austin was staring with all his 
eyes at my sister Eve, I turned involuntarily and 
looked at her. To my surprise I found that Eve had 
grown quite white, white to the very lips, and that 
her eyelids had drooped so that her eyes could not 
be seen. I was so puzzled that I scarcely knew what 
to do. Then I remembered that I had not intro- 
duced him to Eve and thought perhaps she was em- 
barrassed thereby, though why that should be so in 
a free-and-easy family like ours, I simply could not 
tell. However, I had no idea of my future husband 
and my sister remaining as strangers to one another, 
so I went across to Austin and said, ‘‘I want to in- 
troduce you to my sister, Eve/' 

He gave a great jump, as if I had startled him 
suddenly, but pulled himself together and said, in 
just his ordinary tones, “Yes, yes, do introduce me, 
darling.” 

So I took him over to where Eve was standing. 
“Eve, this is Mr. Gray. I hope for my sake that 
you will like each other.” 

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than 
210 


THE INEVITABLE . 


2 1 1 


I felt that I had said the wrong thing. Why it was 
wrong, I did not know ; but it was wrong, of that I 
was certain. Eve looked up at him for just a min- 
ute, a mere flash of a glance, and then immediately 
dropped her eyes again. She held out her hand and 
Austin took it and kept it fast in his own until, in- 
deed, she drew it away. “ I am delighted to meet 
you,” said he, in a voice which was new to me. 
“May I also echo your sister’s wish and hope that 
you will not dislike me ? ” 

Then Eve looked up again. “Of course, I shall 
not dislike you,” she said, and she seemed to say it 
with an effort. “What an absurd idea. Why, we 
have been quite anxious to see you, Mrs. Dagen- 
ham and I ; we have talked of you so much.” 

I thought that I had better go away and leave 
them to become better acquainted, and as I moved 
away I heard him say in a very low tone, “And I 
did not know of the honor . . . and happiness.” 
He spoke the two last words in such an undertone 
that they only just caught my ear, indeed, I was not 
quite sure whether he really said them or whether I 
had fancied it. It seemed such an unlikely thing 
for him to say, for Austin was not a gushing kind of 
person, quite the contrary, in truth. 

I made my way over to where Madge was sitting 
close to mother, and just pouring out the tea. “My 
dear child,” she whispered to me as I sat down, “ I 
congratulate you a thousand times, he is quite charm- 
ing.” 

“ I’m glad you like him, ” I replied, wondering the 


2 12 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


while what could possibly have possessed Eve. "He 
is good-looking, isn’t he ? ” 

“Very, very good-looking,” returned my sister, 
who with all her devotion to Geoffrey and that baby, 
had not forgotten what a good-looking man was 
like. “And so charming too. I think you are very 
lucky, Nancy, dear, for although a good husband is 
a very desirable creature, I always think that he is 
none the worse for being handsome too.” 

I glanced across to see how the two were getting 
on. Eve had seated herself on the wide lounge near 
to which they had been standing, and Austin was 
standing talking to her, talking away at a great rate 
too. As I looked she glanced up and with a smile 
made a gesture to him that he should sit down be- 
side her. He was just about to do so, when he saw 
me take a cup of tea from Madge, on which he came 
and took it out of my hand. 

“And for whom is this ? ” he asked. 

“For Eve,” I replied. “No, she does not take 
sugar. ” 

I turned back to the table again and went on talk- 
ing to Madge, and by and by, it being late, we all 
went our different ways that we might get ready for 
dinner. 

I went of course to my usual room, one that 
opened out of Eve’s. “Well,” I said, going in after 
her, “ tell me, what do you think of him? ” 

“ I think he is exceedingly handsome,” said Eve, 
but she spoke without the smallest enthusiasm, and 
X felt nettled accordingly. 


THE INEVITABLE. 


213 


“You don’t like him,” I blurted out. 

Eve turned and flung her arm round me. “Oh, 
my dear, dear Nancy,” she said, in a shaking voice, 
“ forgive me, I cannot go into raptures over any one 
who is going to take you right away from us. Mr. 
Gray is very handsome and he seems to be a most 
charming man too ; but I have a feeling, I cannot 
help feeling that he will part us from each other 
somehow.” 

“ My dear Eve,” I cried, in direst dismay, for this 
was a wholly unlooked-for catastrophe and one on 
which I had therefore not reckoned, “don’t, pray 
don't begin with any such horrid idea. It’s trye that 
we are not going to live in Minchester or anywhere 
hereabouts, but we shall be within reach, and there 
is no reason why you and I should be any different 
to each other now than we have been before. You 
have never felt any differently about Madge. Why 
should you do so in my case ? ” 

“Nancy dear,” said Eve, still keeping her arm 
around me. “It was different then. We were very 
young when Madge was married, and after all you 
and I have been nearer to each other, more to each 
other than ever she and I have been. We have been 
through sorrow together and that alone makes every- 
thing quite different. As it is, I feel that we shall 
never be the same again, you and I, never quite 
the same again.” 

She spoke with inexpressible sadness and held me 
tightly to her. 

“ Don't take any notice of me,” she said, after a 


214 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


minute, or two. “I am silly and weak to-night, 
Don’t let me spoil your first evening at home, and 
when you are so happy too. I’m a fool, but I never 
thoroughly knew it before.” 

“ But I can’t think what you have been doing to 
yourself, Evie,” I cried. “I never saw you in this 
sort of way before, you are getting positively pessi- 
mistic. ” 

Eve caught me up instantly. “Bless me,” she 
cried, with a sudden change of tone. “ Where did 
you pick up that long learned word, I wonder ? Has 
the incomparable Austin been putting the finishing 
touches on your education already ? ” 

“ Don’t be silly,” I answered, laughing, for it was 
a perfect blessing to see her somewhat more like 
herself. “ It’s an ordinary word enough and a most 
useful one. Well, I must fly and get ready at once 
or I shall be late.” 

“ Yes, go this minute ; don’t be late for any- 
thing,” cried my sister, gently pushing me out of 
the room. 

I was late and I applied myself to the task of 
dressing for dinner with all possible despatch, and 
when I was ready I went back into Eves room to 
see if she was dressed also, so that we might go 
downstairs together. To my surprise, she was 
standing before the chest of drawers resting her 
head upon her hands. I shut the door softly and 
stole away. 

The only person that I found in the drawing-room 
was Madge. And I tackled her on the subject at 


THE INEVITABLE. 


2I 5 


once. “I say, Madge,” I said, plunging straight 
into the question which was puzzling me so woe- 
fully. “I want to ask you a plain question.” 

“ Then ask it,” said Madge, in the most ordinary 
every-day tones. 

“Well, it is just this. Has Eve been fretting at 
all about my being married ? ” 

“ Eve ! No, not the least in the world. Why, 
you little conceited thing, of course not. Eve is 
simply delighted over the whole affair.” 

“ She has a very queer way of showing it, that’s all 
I can say,” I remarked dryly. “She is down in a fit 
of the worst blues that I have ever seen her in, says 
we shall never be the same again and a lot more in 
the same strain. And when I looked into her room 
just now, she was standing up in front of the chest 
of drawers resting her face in her hands and looking 
the very picture of disconsolate wretchedness. Of 
course, we all know it is rather a wrench to leave 
home and a wrench when others go ; but I have 
only just come back again and we are not going to 
be married for ages. Why, Eve may be married 
herself longf before I am.” 

I heard Madge laugh and then the most extraor- 
dinary thing happened. I felt my head begin to 
spin round and the white mist came in front of my 
eyes which always foretold a vision of some kind. 
Then a picture began to form slowly, and I saw Eve, 
my sister Eve, standing in front of an altar-rail with 
a white-robed clergyman on the other side of it. I 
was conscious that there was a bridegroom, but the 


2l6 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


figure was quite obscured by the thick white mist, 
which shut out the rest of the picture. “Eve is 
getting married,” I said, with a gasp to Madge. “ I 
can see her plainly ; she is wearing a gray frock and 
a gray hat. It is made with a great many little tucks 
here and there. I cannot see the bridegroom, but 
she is being married, the ring is on. Now she kneels 
down . . . yes, she is being married. Ah, now 

it has all gone.” 

Madge positively shook me in her eagerness. 
“Nancy, Nanc]q they are coming,” she cried, “keep 
this to yourself. Pray, pray, don’t say a single word 
about it. Eve has goi a new gray frock ; it is made 
exactly as you describe , and she has a hat to match it. ” 

Just then the door opened and mother came in, 
followed by Geoffrey and then by Austin, who came 
straight across the room to me. 

“ Well, my darling,” he said, in just his ordinary 
tones . . . “and have you had anything of a 

gossip yet ? ” 

I looked at him. I tried to say something, but the 
words died away on my lips and I put my hand into 
his instead. 

“ What is the matter?” he asked. “ Don’t you 
feel well, dear ? ” 

“ Not very. Don’t say anything. I shall be all 
right in a minute,” I replied, and even to my own 
ears my voice sounded far-away and strange. 

Austin looked closely at me. “You have not 
been seeing things again , have you ? ” he asked, in 
a suddenly enlightened way. 


THE INEVITABLE . 


217 


“Yes, but nothing horrid, ” I returned. 

“ And what is it this time ? ” he demanded. 

“ I cannot tell you ” 

“ Nothing about me, I hope. You know I live 
in daily, nay, in hourly dread of it.” he said, half 
teasingly. 

“ Oh, no, nothing about you. Nothing to alarm 
any one, only I never see anything without feeling 
as if it would kill me, never. I hate seeing things,” 
I added vehemently. 

As usual, with every moment I felt the influence 
less and less, and by the time Eve came downstairs, 
I was almost myself again. Mercifully, no one else 
noticed that anything had happened to me, and 
Madge kept her own counsel about it. So I escaped 
observation, for which, under the circumstances, I 
was profoundly thankful. 

I never look back to that first evening at home at 
the dear Warren without a feeling of pleasure 
mingled with sadness. For Eve, the loved sister 
and friend of my childhood, the companion of my 
girlhood, was never quite the same Eve to me again. 
She had spoken truly when she said that she had a 
feeling that Austin would part us from each other. 
So he did, but not in the way in which she imagined. 
I don’t know what could have put it into my head, 
but I thought that Eve had some kind of a love-affair 
on hand which had made a difference in her manner 
towards all of us. Well, perhaps it was the half 
vision that came to me that put such a thought in 
my head. Yet Eve was quite her own old self that 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


2 18 

night and played at round games with the best of us. 
And so we went to bed and Madge came into our 
rooms for a long, long chat over our hair-brushing. 
Plow we talked that night. And how Madge teased 
me about Austin — “Your young man ” as she called 
him. 

And, of course, I had to show them all the beauti- 
ful presents he had given me while in town, and 
what with one thing and another, it was two o’clock 
before we parted and got into our respective beds. 
For my part, I went off to sleep feeling just as happy 
as I had ever done in my life, quite thinking that 
the cloud which had seemed to be hanging over Eve 
had passed away. Yet with daylight it came back 
again, and I knew that everything was changed and 
would never come right again. 

Not all in one day, oh, dear, no, but from that day 
things went less smoothly and there was always an 
undercurrent of unrest and make-believe about us 
all, though I do think that none of us quite knew 
why. 

For one thing, Austin and Eve avoided each other ; 
yes, I could not shut my eyes to it. Nor could I 
tell why ... I only know that they did. And very 
awkward it was, for Madge and her husband went 
home after a few days, and then we three younger 
ones were thrown pretty much together. Of course 
it was quite natural that Austin should pair off with 
me, and that Eve should make engagements with- 
out cither consulting us or taking us into account. 
Yet when we went out to Dagenham, we equally 


THE INEVITABLE . 


219 

naturally went together, and then the coolness be- 
tween them was most painfully apparent and to me 
most embarrassing. I asked Austin about it one day. 
“Why don’t you and Eve like each other, Austin ?” 
I asked, bluntly. 

“Does Eve dislike me?” he asked, in such a 
curious tone. “ When did she say so ? ” 

“Of course she never said so, ” I returned, im- 
patiently. “But you don’t like each other, you 
know that as well as I do. Why, you avoid each 
other like the plague and never speak a word if you 
can possibly help it. 

“I came here to be near you, not to cultivate 
your sister,” he said, after a moment’s pause. 

“ I am afraid I was very rude, for I said plump 
out, “Fiddlesticks.” 

Austin looked up and regarded me with a grave 
and abstracted gaze. 

“Dearest,” he said, “if you think that I do not 
pay your sister attention enough ” 

I uttered an exclamation of impatience. “Oh, 
dear, dear, how difficult you both are to manage,” 
I cried. “Really, if I did not know it to be im- 
possible, I should imagine that you were both in 
love with each other and were pining away from a 
mistake sense of honor. ” 

“And yet you insist that we dislike each other,” 
said Austin, in a bantering tone. “You are like all 
your sex, most inconsistent, my child.” 

“Well, perhaps I am ; I only know that every- 
thing is most uncomfortable and changed from 


220 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


what the Warren used to be. Ah, it was jolly in the 
old days . . . before poor dear Tom died. Do you 
know/’ I continued, “I believe, joking apart, that 
Eve has never got over the awful shock of Tom’s 
death ? ” 

“Was she so fond of him, then? ” Austin asked, 
in a somewhat constrained tone. 

“Fond of him! Why, she was simply devoted 
to him. She adored him. Tom and she were the 
greatest chums that ever were in any family in the 
world. We thought she would have died when we 
knew — and so I believe she would have done, if it 
had not been for our fear that mother would lose her 
reason. 

He said nothing, but after a little while he put out 
his hand and took mine. “Darling,” he said, in a 
sort of way as if he had stubbornly made up his 
mind that he would do something that was not 
very palatable to him. “I am so sorry about it 
all. I will try to win your sister’s regard ... if I 
can. 

Yet things got no better after this. True, Austin 
paid Eve a good deal more attention, but Eve’s re- 
strained manner did not relax in the least. I said 
nothing about it to her. I did not mind asking 
my lover to be nice to my sister, but I could not 
quite bring myself to ask my sister to be more kind 
to my lover. Perhaps I was wrong, but as that 
was how I felt, I acted on it. So the days went on 
until Austin s visit had almost come to an end and 
he began to talk of going back to town, and he and 


the inevitable. 


22 t 


Eve seemed just as far away from each other as 
ever. 

I confess it troubled me very much. You see, 
we Reynards had always been such a united family, 
and Madge’s husband had always been just like one 
of ourselves, so that this marked want of friendli- 
ness between Austin and Eve was something quite 
new and altogether detestable. However, the days 
sped on, and Austins last one came. Mother had 
asked Madge and Geoffrey to come over and stay the 
night, and I had promised Madge that I would go 
back to Dagenham with them for a week or so, 
after Austin had gone. 

We were expecting them every moment and 
mother had made me promise — she being gone 
for a drive with the colonel — that if Eve should 
happen to be out when they came, that I would see 
that they got some tea as soon as they arrived. 
Austin and I were in the garden, when I was called 
in to see some one who had come begging for alittle 
soup for a sick person. 

“I won’t be more than a minute,” I said to him 
as I went towards the house, and I thought to my- 
self that I would speak about the tea while I was on 
this errand. 

Of course, I was longer than a minute, — every- 
body who goes on an errand is. I had to see the 
poor woman and listen to her tale of woe, suggest 
a few little dainties in addition to the soup, and then 
to speak to the parlor-maid about the tea being 
delayed until Mr. and Mrs. Dagenham’s arrival. So 


222 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


it must have been quite half an hour ere I went back 
to the garden to rejoin Austin. 

I did not find him where I had left him, that is, 
under the great tree where we always sat in hot 
weather ; but as I stood there idly cogitating, I 
caught a glimpse of Eve's white frock just beyond 
the hedge which shut off the kitchen garden from 
the lawn. I went towards her, without stopping to 
think whether she was alone or not, and then to my 
intense surprise saw that she was with Austin, her 
hands held fast in his, her face downcast, and in his 
an expression such as I had never brought there ! 

For a moment I was stunned . . . stunned 

So this was the meaning of the avoidance, 
the coldness, the frozen silence of these two, my 
sister and my lover. They loved each other and I 
— I, Nancy Reynard, stood between them ! 


CHAPTER XXL 


IN THE GARDEN. 

It happened that neither Austin nor my sister had 
heard my footfall on the soft turf. Probably both of 
them were so taken up with their disturbed feelings 
that they were more or less blind to outer influences. 
“ Can nothing be done ? ” I heard Austin say in a 
desperate sort of tone. 

“Nothing — except to hide it all,” said Eve. She 
spoke in a very firm voice but with unutterable 
sadness. As for me, I just stood still and listened, 
the first time in my life that I had ever indulged 
in or felt inclined to indulge in eavesdropping. 
But this I felt I had more right to hear than any- 
body. 

“But you know you love me, Eve/’ he said pas- 
sionately. 

“ But she loved you first,” answered Eve, pitifully, 
and looking up at him again. 

“Eve, my love, my love. God help me, I never 
knew what love was until now.” His tone was 
bitterness itself and he caught her to him with what 
was almost a cry. I stole lightly away and passed 
swiftly into the house and up to my own room, 

223 


224 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


leaving them to their brief spell of heart-broken 
delirium. 

So it was all over ! Eve had been right and Austin 
had come to part us, though not as she and I had 
thought. I might have saved them a few pangs if I 
had gone boldly forward and told them that I had 
learned the truth and that I would not stand in their 
way. But I wanted to get used to it a little and to 
make up my mind to bear the wrench of giving 
him up before I told even the two whom it would 
most affect. 

Looking back, how well I remembered my sug- 
gesting that as likely as not he would fall in love 
with Eve and how he had laughed the very notion 
to scorn. Yet nevertheless it had come true, that 
word spoken in jest, and it was Eve whom my Austin 
loved, not Nancy at all. My Austin did I say ? Why, 
he was mine no longer but Eve’s, all Eve’s, and 
would be Eve’s always, whether I chose to set him 
free of his promise or not. Ay, and I think that was 
the greatest rub of all, the knowledge that whatever 
I chose to do, I could not help the one fact that he 
was Eve’s, all Eve’s, and would be hers forever and 
ever, for all time. 

But I never even for a moment thought of accusing 
Austin and Eve of falseness towards me ; and I 
never thought of keeping him to his word. Oh, no, 
I had no fancy for a husband who would be a mere 
shell, who would be mine to all outward semblance 
and who in heart and soul would irrevocably belong 
for all time to another. I know that women have 


IN THE GARDEN. 


225 


done such things as these, and have lived in a hell 
of jealousy and impotent craving after the unattain- 
able ever after. And much as I had loved and did 
love Austin, I was not willing to do the one thing 
which would ruin his whole life. Besides, where 
would be the sense of keeping a man's hand where 
one could not have his heart? 

I was still in my room when a maid came to tell 
me that Mr. and Mrs. Dagenham had come. I went 
straight down to them and explained where mother 
and the colonel were. “You shall have some tea 
in a minute, dear,” I told her. “And tell me, how 
is the blessed boy ? ” 

Madge gave me some details about the precious 
boy, but then turned and looked at me rather 
sharply. “Have you been ill, Nan?” she said. 
“You’re surely not fretting about Austin going 
away ? ” 

“Not at all,” I replied promptly, for I was in no 
way minded to hold myself up as an object of pity 
to my family. 

Just then Austin came in, and after greeting the 
newcomers, began to help me to pour out the tea 
or rather to hand it round. I looked at him when 
I could, this poor soul just come from the burial 
of his life’s romance. I had never loved him better 
than now, when I saw him with dark, dark shadows 
under his eyes and lines about his mouth which 
had grown there in a few short hours. Poor Austin, 
my heart bled for him, as it ached for myself. 

“And where is Evie? ” asked Madge presently, 

*5 


226 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“Oh, she is about somewhere or other,” I replied 
carelessly, leaving any further explanation to come 
from Austin, who knew better than any of us where 
Evie was. 

But Austin said never a single word, not even that 
she had been out in the garden since I had been 
called into the house. Poor fellow, he tried hard to 
do so, but I saw that the words would not come in 
spite of his efforts. 

“You had better ring for her,” I said to Austin, 
who was quite near to the bell. “She probably 
does not know that they have come or that tea is 
ready. ” 

So Austin rang the bell and when the maid ap- 
peared, I told her to find out if Miss Reynard was in 
the house, and if so to let her know that Mr. and 
Mrs. Dagenham had come. 

Apparently she was successful in her quest, for 
after a few minutes Eve came down, not looking 
pale as one might reasonably have expected, but 
with heightened color and shining eyes. I was 
dumfounded at the sight. So this was the effect of 
knowing that Austin’s whole heart and soul were 
hers, even the tragedy and hopelessness of their 
situation had not been able to dim the glory of the 
truth, for the time, at least. And I more than ever 
realized the folly of a woman trying to keep fast 
hold of the husk when the kernel was gone else- 
where. 

1 had no opportunity of saying anything to 
Austin until after mother and the colonel had 


IN THE GARDEN 


227 


come home and had engrossed Madge's attention. 
“Come out into the garden. I want to tell you 
something,” I said to him. 

He turned towards the wide open window at once 
and we walked out into the radiance of the fair June 
sunset together. I caught just a flash of Eve’s eyes 
as we went . . . Poor Eve, it must have been hard for 
her and she did not know how soon joy was coming. 

There was a long walk through a shrubbery at 
the Warren, from which, indeed, the place was 
named. Austin and I went along this walk slowly 
and in silence, I feeling half shy concerning what 
I had to say to him, and he — well, I cannot be 
supposed to know what he was thinking of, but I 
should say of his stolen moment of love with Eve. 
The sun was glinting through the tall trees and 
shrubs and making strange weird shadows athwart 
the path which we were treading . . . “I wanted 
to say something to you, Austin,’’ I began at last, in 
a sort of desperation. 

Austin turned and looked at me. “Why, my 
dear,” he said, just in the same considerate, kind voice 
as of old, “ what is wrong? ” 

“ Well, so far as I can see,” I replied, “ everything 
is wrong, everything.” 

“As how?” he asked, his face paling a little. 

“ Dear Austin,” I said, slipping my hand into his, 
“it is no use beating about the bush any longer — I 
know all.” 

He fairly staggered in the intensity of his 
surprise. 


22 8 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“My God ! ” he muttered under his breath. 
“ How ? Tell me, whom have you seen, what have 
you heard ? All, what do you mean ? ” 

“Mean . . . Why, that I was in the garden this 
afternoon when you and Eve thought you were 
alone with each other,” I returned simply. “ I 
heard most of what you said — I felt that I had a 
right to listen, that it concerned me as much as you 
two.” 

“Nancy!” he exclaimed hoarsely, “you don't 

mean that you — that you ” 

“ That I know that you and Eve love each other? ” 
I ended. “Yes, I mean just that, of course. What 
else should I mean ? ” 

He stopped short. “Nancy, I know that I have 
been a brute, that no words of mine can ever ex- 
press how bitterly sorry I am for all this. I did not 

mean, that is, I had no idea — and — and ” 

“I did not bring you out hereto reproach you, 
Austin,” I said with dignity. “Of course I know 
that you could not either of you help it. You 
thought you were in love with me, and Heaven 
knows I thought I was in love with you, but it seems 
that we were both mistaken, and it is much better to 
find it out now than if we had got married and had 
found it out afterwards. As it is, there is no reason 
why you should not marry Eve, just as well as you 
could have married me.” 

He turned round. “Nancy, you would allow 
this ? Nancy, I feel dazed — dazed. Am I dreaming, 
or did you really say that ? n 


IN THE GARDEN. 


229 


“Oh, I said it right enough,” I replied, trying 
to smile in a whole-hearted way which I was very 
far from feeling. “You want to marry her, don’t 
you ? ” 

“Oh, Nancy ! ” he repeated again. 

“Yes, I see that you would. Well, it is quite 
simple. I will give you to Eve.” 

“ But there is so much to be thought of,” he pro- 
tested. “Your father and mother .... what in 
the world will they say ? Eve, will she — will she 

be inclined to let you make this— this ” 

‘ ‘ Sacrifice ? ” I suggested. 

He reddened at the word. “Well, yes, I know 
it must seem a most conceited thing to say, but I 
don’t mean it in that light at all,” he said, with a 
small show of awkwardness. “But, yousee, Nancy, 
up to this moment I have believed that you were 
very much in love with me ...” 

“And now that you find that I am not, that I have 
been mistaken, just as you have been, you are not 
half as grateful as you might be,” I retorted. “Well, 
this is an ungrateful world, no mistake about it. 
Austin, am I to tell you in plainer words that I would 
like to be free of my engagement to you ? ” 

He caught hold of my hands. “ Nancy, you are 
quite sure?” he asked. “And you are not doing 

this out of a feeling of — of ■” 

“I am quite, quite sure,” I replied firmly, “that 
I would not marry you now for any consideration 
on earth, not if there was not another man in all 
the world, not if you begged and prayed me — 


23 ° 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


which I am sure I devoutly hope you won’t do — for 
a year. So don’t argue about it any more but 
accept the gifts the gods offer with thankfulness and 
with gratitude. ” 

‘‘But your father ” 

“Oh, I will explain matters to him, if you like,” 
I said half recklessly, for I felt if I was in for a 
pennyworth of explanations I might as well be in 
for a pound of them. 

“ You would do that too? ” he ejaculated. 

“Shall I send Eve out to you ? ’’ I asked, for I was 
beginning to feel that I had had about enough of 
this sort of thing — for, you know, I really did care, 
though I made believe so valiantly that I did not. 

He was still holding my hands and he looked 
down at me with a curious expression which I did 
not understand. “My little Nancy, you have 
broken me down completely,” he said. “What am 
I to say ? How am I to thank you ? I can only 
say that in no sense am I worthy to tie your shoe, 
if you knew everything, and before you say any- 
thing to Eve I feel I ought to make a confession to 


“ Not to me,” I cried, wrenching my hands away 
from him. “On no account, if you please. I 
could imagine nothing more dreadful. If you have 
anything to say, you can say it to Eve. As for me 
I have done with you. You know you cannot be 
on the same terms with both of us. It must be one 
or the other, and as I have definitely given you up, 
I cannot be the one. It is not a question which 


IN THE GARDEN. 


231 


admits of further argument. Now, I am going in. 
You have just time to tell Eve the decision we have 
come to before you must think of getting ready for 
dinner. Let me go now.” 

But he caught me back again. “ But you’ll kiss 
me for the last time, Nancy ? ” 

“No, neither for the first or the last time. You 
and I have done with each other so far as that 
sort of thing goes,” I replied firmly. And then 
I turned away and went back towards the house 
alone. 

As I went I looked back over my shoulder and 
called out to him, “Stay there and I will send 
her to you.” 

So I went towards the house, but as I reached 
the terrace which ran in front of the drawing-room 
windows, I met Eve, looking still very white and 
drawn, evidently coming in quest of us. 

“ Mother wants you for a few minutes,” she said, 
as we met. 

“ I was just coming in,” I replied. “ I wish you 
would go down to the Warren and tell Austin that I 
am not coming out again.” 

“ I will, ’’she replied simply. 

I stood to watch her go and with a smile turned 
and went into the house. I found mother and 
Madge in the drawing-room. “You wanted me, 
dear ? ” I said to her. 

“Yes, here is a note from Mrs. Newcombe which 
I cannot answer until you have seen it. You see, 
she asks you particularly to this dinner and the serv- 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


232 

ant is waiting for a reply. Will you be back from 
Dagenham by that time ? ” 

“My dear mother,” I said, taking her hand and 
speaking in what I felt to be an admirably indiffer- 
ent voice, “ I am going to take your breath away. 
I cannot go to this party of Mrs. Newcombe’s, for 
the very good reason that I shall be at Dagenham for 
much longer than a week — unless Madge proves 
hard-hearted and won’t have me there, in which case 
I shall have gone on some other visit. Austin and I 
have agreed that, sweet and lovely as we both are, 
we are not for each other and we have parted.” 

“You and Austin have quarrelled?” she cried, 
while Madge echoed the words in the same breath. 

“Certainly not,” I returned sharply. “We have 
not had a single word of difference, ever. No, the 
truth is, Austin and I do not care for each other ex- 
cept in a very lukewarm kind of way, and — and — 
he and Eve have found out that they do.” 

My mother stood up in her surprise. “Do you 
mean to tell me that Austin has deserted you for 
Eve, and that Eve has stolen your lover away from 
you ? ” she cried in a tone of extremest disgust. 

“No such thing,” I declared firmly. “They 
have both been self-sacrificing and most honorable 
over the whole affair. As it was, I only found it 
out by a pure accident. You know, dear mother, 
these things are not always within our own control 
and may happen to any one. And it is all definitely 
settled, so far as I am concerned, and there is noth- 
ing more to say. I think it a perfect mercy that we 


IN THE GARDEN . 


2 33 


have found it out before it was too late to remedy 
the mistake.” 

“ And you don’t care ?” she cried. 

“I don’t think that I have ever really been 
desperately in love with Austin, as one ought to be, 
you know,” I replied, for I felt that I must make my 
case good, or else that I should have put myself on 
one side for nothing. “And, mother, Eve is break- 
ing her heart about him. You know what a self- 
contained girl she has always been and how deeply 
she feels everything. You must remember how she 
grieved for our dear old Tom and how we were 
afraid. . . . But you know all that. Well, dear, I 
don’t in the least mind her having won Austin’s love, 
but I do want them both to be happy. ” 

“ I don’t know what your father will say,” mother 
said at last — and then I kissed her, for I knew that 
I had won the day. 

“Never mind what the colonel says, dear,” I re- 
plied. “You know that you can make him see 
anything in the light in which you wish him to see 
it. And may I remind you that Mrs. Newcombe’s 
servant is waiting for an answer to her invitation? 
Madge, I suppose I may count on you to provide 
me with a haven into which I can hie me to hide 
my forlorn condition ? ” 

“Oh, Nancy, darling, for a year if you like,” she 
answered, stretching out her hand to me. “And, 
Nancy, I must say I do think you the most gener- 
ous girl I have ever known in all my life. I think 
Austin a perfect fool to lose the chance of such a 


234 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


wife, yes, I do indeed. And I only hope, darling, 
that it may be made up to you a thousand times, 
and that those two will never suffer for what they 
have done to-day. I only hope that.” 

“I don’t see why they should suffer,” I replied, in 
an undertone, for mother had gone to her writing- 
table and was scribbling her note to Mrs. New- 
combe. “ Poor souls, they have suffered enough as 
it is.” 

“I don’t know,” said Madge, a little curtly, “I 
have not kept my eyes shut these last few weeks, 
though I felt it was no good my saying anything 
about it.” 

“Well, a case of real desperate love is a very 
serious thing for the family in which it happens,” I 
remarked, in a joking tone, “and I advise you to 
hold your peace about this particular instance. You 
will find it the easiest in the long run. And now, I 
am going to get dressed for dinner. I suppose I 
shall have ever such a fuss with the colonel pres- 
ently.” 

“Oh, mother will have broken the ice for you,” 
said Madge, as I went out of the room. 

When I found myself alone in my own room, I 
turned the key in both the doors, one of which led 
to the landing and the other into Eve’s bedroom. I 
wanted to have a little while quite to myself to 
think over the thing which I had done, more or less 
on the impulse of the moment. Of course, it was 
too late to undo it, yet I wanted to think of it all the 
same. 


IN THE GARDEN 


2 35 


Well, I had done it. Austin and I were nothing to 
each other now and never would be anything to 
each other again. Did I care so much? Well, yes, 
to be quite honest, I think I did, nay, I know that I 
did. 

Still, even in my pain, the pain of being slighted, 
I still felt that I had chosen the better part and that, 
by and by, I should have my reward, and even if I 
never had that, yet at the very worst. I should in the 
course I had taken find the lesser pain. 

And I was still sitting in front of my dressing- 
table, staring abstractedly at myself in the glass, 
when I heard the door which led into Eve’s room 
gently tried. Then Eve’s voice came to me — 
“Nancy, Nancy, open the door, I want to speak to 
you. ” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


A FACE I KNEW ! 

As I expected, the colonel did not take the new 
state of things quite so easily as our mother had 
done. I saw when we sat down to dinner that 
evening that he had as yet heard nothing. He 
chaffed me about my forlorn state, to the great dis- 
comfiture of both Eve and Austin, and then he drank 
to our next merry meeting, for, as he said, he did 
not count the parting breakfast which we should 
partake of together as being of any importance. As 
each sally was slung forth so did Austin look more 
uncomfortable and Eve more wretched. But the 
colonel never noticed that anything out of the 
common had transpired, and joked cheerily on until 
the meal at last came to an end. 

I had given Austin and Geoffrey a hint to betake 
themselves away as soon as possible after dinner, 
and as soon as I knew that the coast was clear, I 
went in and sat down at the table with my father, 
who was enjoying a last glass of some thin Rhenish 
wine and smoking an after-dinner cigarette. ‘ ‘ Hollo, 
is it you?” he remarked, as I appeared. “Why, 
child, you are getting near to the period of feeling 
like ‘Leah, the Forsaken.’” 


236 


A FACE I KNEW! 


237 


"‘And a good deal more like it than you think,” I 
returned promptly. 

He looked up. 

“ Hey, what d’you mean ? ” he demanded, a little 
sharply. 

“My dear old Daddy,” I replied, “I want you to 
prepare yourself for a tremendous surprise. I am 
not going to be married after all. You were quite 
right — I did not know my own mind. I do know it 
now, and I am minded to stay at home a little longer 
with you and mother.” 

My father turned and stared at me. 

“What!” he almost shouted. “Is it that you 
have chucked Austin ” 

“Well, you needn’t put it in that horrid way,” I 
said meekly. “ I haven’t exactly done that, as a 
matter of fact. No, but I have had my doubts as to 
the depth of our feelings for some little time, and — 
and — and this is the surprise, Daddy — I find that 
Austin and Eve ” 

“WHAT!” he bawled out, suddenly growing 
scarlet with indignation. “Do you mean to tell me 
that Eve, that a daughter of mine ” 

“Now, now,” I put in soothingly. “Don’t excite 
yourself over it, dear. They have both behaved 
beautifully and with every consideration towards 
me, and all you are wanted to do is to bless them 
and let them get married quietly and go away and 
enjoy their happiness.” And then I gave him the 
outlines of the story, just as I had done to mother. 

I am bound to admit that at first I thought he 


238 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


meant to hold out against them forever. He 
stormed and raved and blustered and finally put 
this question to me, which, much as I wished to 
make the path of the lovers smooth and easy for 
them, I must admit was a regular clincher. “Tell 
me,” he thundered. “If Gray is able to change his 
mind so easily as this between you two, how am I 
to know that he will not change it again when some 
other fancy strikes him ? Answer me that.” 

I could not answer it for a moment. “Dear 
Daddy,” I said at last, “ you cannot have forgotten 
what trouble Madge used to give you on this very 
matter. How many times was she engaged ? Well, 
you never made half as much fuss then as you are 
doing now. I don’t think it’s quite fair, do you?” 

“Would you like me to be pleased with this 
fellow for jilting you,” he cried, “and to be 
pleased with Eve for taking your lover away from 
you ...” 

“ But she has not done so, and he has not done so. 
I tell you I found it out by a mere accident. Neither 
of them were at all willing to take the smallest ad- 
vantage over me. They cannot help their feelings 
— poor things, they are miserable enough over it.” 

“ And serve ’em right too,” growled the colonel 
testily. “ I’ve no patience with feelings like those. 
Ugh ! You make me ill when you make excuses 
for them.” 

“ But you’ll be nice and kind and sweet to them 
— to please me, won’t you, dear old Daddy ? ” I put 
in persuasively. 


A FACE I KNEW! 


239 


“ H’m, that’s the way dear old Daddy is to be 
managed, is it ? ” he returned. He was still vexed, 
but I felt that he was relenting. 

“ They don’t want a very long engagement,” I 
remarked, though neither of them had so much as 
hinted at the subject to me. “You see, Eve is not 
as young as I and there is not the same need for 
her waiting. I think,” I added artfully, “ that was 
one of the reasons why you insisted on my waiting 
at least a year, that I might have plenty of time 
for changing my mind.” 

“ Go away, you saucy young baggage,” said the 
colonel, bursting out laughing in spite of himself. 

“ Then I may tell them that they have nothing 
to fear from you ? ” I remarked. 

“ You can tell them that I shall only consent 
because_y0« have asked it,” he replied brusquely. 
“ Eve knows what the fellow is and has had a 
pretty sample of his constancy. She goes into it 
with her eyes wide open and cannot, and indeed 
never must, blame me if the marriage turns out a 
most dismal failure, Still, Nancy, my dear little 
girl, I should like you to satisfy me on one point. 
Are you quite sure that this business is not hurting 
you very much ? Are you sure you are not doing 
all this out of a mere Quixotic sense of chivalry ? ” 

I slipped my arm round my father’s neck. 
“ Dear Daddy,” I said, “ I don’t think I was really 
in love with Austin. Sometimes, do you know, I 
used to stick fast when I was talking to him because 
I could not think of anything to say. Surely, there 


240 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


must have been something wanting ; everything 
could not have been as it should have been. Did 
you ever find yourself stuck fast for want of some- 
thing to say when you were engaged to mother ? v 

“ Never ! ” declared my father, with emphasis. 

“ And even if I were still a little fond of him, don’t 
you think it is better to part than to go on, knowing 
that there was another between us ? Why, Daddy, 
I would not put myself into such a wretched con- 
dition for all the world ! ” 

“ And you are right, my darling,” he cried in his 
tenderest accents. “ It is better to find such mis- 
takes out before rather than after. But I don’t feel 
so sure that there is any great chance of happiness 
for Eve, and I don’t know that she deserves it.” 

“ Poor Eve ! Don’t say that to her, dear,” I im- 
plored. “ For she is feeling just the same herself.” 

So it was all right. I went and told them that the 
way was fairly smooth, and then I sought out Madge 
and arranged that I should go back to Dagenham 
with her the following day. And then I pleaded 
weariness and went off to bed, and, if I tell the truth, 
I must confess that I cried myself to sleep. 

I woke up about six o’clock in the morning and 
lay thinking over the strange changes which had 
taken place in my life during the past few hours. 
Well, it was all for the best, no doubt, but — but — it 
did hurt, oh, yes, it did hurt, and I knew that, all 
my stout protestations to the contrary, I did love 
Austin still. 

However, it was no use thinking of that now. I 


A FACE I KNEW! 


241 


had done the deed and there could be no going back 
therefrom. To one thing I had quite made up my 
mind, that, cost me what it might, I would never let 
any one of my people know how much it had been 
to me to give up my lover — my lover, did I say ? 1 

meant rather my fiance ! 

I rose at the usual time and went to breakfast with 
as bright a morning face as I could muster up at 
such short notice. Once or twice I saw Eve look- 
ing at me in wonder, evidently thoroughly astonished 
at my cold-bloodness in being able to appear after 
such a loss as Austin. Really, I found myself 
several times on the verge of laughing out aloud, the 
expression on her face was so comical to me. 

The colonel was what old nurse would have de- 
scribed as “ chuffy ! ” That is to say, he was just 
as cross as two sticks, and kept flinging curt remarks 
down for any one to take up and challenge if they 
chose. And as the desire of every one of us was to 
avoid anything approaching to a quarrel, nobody 
did take them up and a series of uncomfortable 
silences was the result. A more uncomfortable meal 
I never sat through. 

Immediately after it was over I went off to 
Dagenham with Madge and Geoffrey. And right 
glad I was to get away. Madge and Geoffrey too 
were perfectly jubilant, and did not hesitate to say 
that they would not have remained another day at 
the Warren for any consideration whatever. 

“ When one thinks of the settlements to be talked 
over, and the details of the wedding and the trousseau, 
16 


242 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


and father’s thundery looks and dear mother’s sighs, 
I must say that I think Eve is getting her sweetheart 
at a very dear price. I am sure it would have been 
much better for him to have gone off to London and 
have let father get a bit used to the new state of 
things rather than staying on to bear the brunt of it 
all. However, it is their lookout, and we need not 
trouble our heads about them.” This was what 
Madge said, and really Madge had had so many 
love affairs and broken engagements in her time 
that I regarded her as an authority. 

A week went by and we saw nothing of the lovers. 
Mother and the colonel came over to lunch one 
day, but father never mentioned them and mother 
would not say anything of how they had been 
getting on. I learned that Austin had left the 
Warren the same day as we did and that he had 
since been staying at the “ Rose and Crown,” 
which was the principal hotel in Minchester. “ I 
believe they are going to be married in about six 
weeks’ time,” mother let slip very 1*1 willingly. 

She had, however, brought a little note from Eve 
to Madge, which Madge passed on to me. This 
was what it said : 

“ Dearest Madge, 

“ If you think it would not be disagree- 
able to Nancy, Austin and I would like to come 
over to lunch one day this week that we may tell 
you our plans. If you think dear Nancy would 
mind it in the very least, of course we would not 


A FACE I KNEW! 


24 3 


dream of coming. You might let me have a word 
to say how she is. Everything is pretty miserable 
here, the colonel black as a thunder-cloud, and 
mother as cold as ice and as close as wax. Every- 
body asking questions and throwing out hints, and 
so we feel that the sooner we hurry things on and 
get out of it the better. It does seem so queer, 
when Nancy has been such an angel to us both, 
that every one else should be doing their best to 
make us miserable. Even nurse shakes her head 
every time she sees me and after pointed remarks 
about her dear lamb at Dagenham, goes off with a 
sort of stifled prayer that it may all turn out for the 
best. She generally adds that it is very doubtful, 
which is re-assuring to say the least of it. Let me 
hear when we may come, if at all. 

“Always your affectionate sister, 

“ Eve. ” 

Madge looked at me rather doubtfully, and I 
answered the thought which I knew was in her 
mind. “ My dear, pray let the poor souls come. I 
don't bear them any ill-will, I assure you. They 
could not help it and I think it is rather cruel of 
every one to be making them feel it so. Let them 
come whenever you and they like.” 

Madge therefore wrote to that effect, and sure 
enough the very next day, over they came, coming 
in a hired conveyance from the “ Rose and Crown.” 
I did think it was mean of father not to have lent 
them the pony-trap at least, but I could not help 


244 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


laughing outright as they drove up. “Is this what 
you call semi-state ? ” I asked derisively, as they 
drew up at the entrance. 

Poor Eve began to cry when she got into the 
morning-room. “ Oh, Nannie darling, if you knew 
what I have gone through ! ” she sobbed, as I kissed 
her. 

I put my arms about her. “ Never mind, dear, it 
will soon be over,’' I whispered, “and the afterward 
will be worth it. You can go away for a good long 
tour, and when you come back again they will have 
forgotten all about it. And perhaps, who knows, I 
may be married too. So don’t fret, dear.” 

She rested her head against me and dried her 
eyes. “ Oh, Nannie, Nannie, how could you give 
him up ? ” she sighed. 

I laughed outright. “ What, is it so bad as 
that?” I asked. “Why, I don’t mind telling you 
now that I did feel a bit bad over it the first two 
days or so ; but I have never felt and never could 
feel like that. Anyway, it’s lucky for you that 1 
do feel so, isn’t it ? ” 

And I was perfectly honest in what I said. As 
soon as I saw the two together and perceived what 
an overwhelming love Eve’s was for him, I knew 
that mine had not been the real thing at all, but 
only the outcome of propinquity and circumstance. 
From that moment I never grudged my sister her 
great happiness and I tried to show them so in every 
way I possibly could. 

“ My dear, it must be perfectly wretched for 


A FACE I KNEW! 


245 


you/’ cried Madge, who was the most easy-going 
creature in existence-and hated quarrels and scenes 
of every shape and kind. 

“ Oh, it’s horrid. You would never believe it was 
the dear old Warren,” answered Eve, with the tears 
coming into her eyes again. “ Even to-day when 
mother knew we were coming over here, she said 
that it was positively indecent to be coming flaunt- 
ing my happiness in Nancy’s face. And such a way 
of putting it, don’t you know. I told mother that 
when Nancy had done so much for us, the very 
least we could do was to let her know our plans, but 
she only shut her lips in that severe way of hers 
— you know — and put up her head, as if — as if I 
was telling a lie about it. Oh, I am most miserable, 
except for that one thing.” 

“ My dear girl,” I remarked, “ you may make 
your mind quite easy about me. I am not pining, 
am I, Madge ? ” 

“ Not the very least little bit,” returned Madge 
promptly. “ I wonder if you would like to come 

over here for a week or so ” and there she broke 

off short and looked doubtfully at me as if to ask 
me to endorse the invitation. 

“ Yes, do come ; it will be ever so much nicer,” 
I said instantly. “ At all events, you will have 
peace and quietness here, with no one to bully you 
for being happy. Pray don’t let any idea of me 
keep you away.” 

So they arranged it should be done, and indeed 
the very next day the poor fugitives came out with 


246 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


a modest amount of luggage and left the storm and 
thunder-clouds behind for a little time. 

I went in to Manchester the following day to see 
mother and to assure her that she and the colonel 
need have no fear or anxiety about me. 1 think 
she was more satisfied when she had seen me and 
had talked it all over again, and she even went so 
far as to promise that she would reproach Eve no 
more, and she would try to take Austin back into 
his old place in her esteem. And when I went 
back to Dagenham I carried the good news with 
me to the no small relief of those mostly concerned. 

Mother had suggested my returning home and 
leaving them with Madge and Geoffrey, but this I 
preferred not to do. “No, dear,” I said, “ if I do 
that, it will give rise to no end of complications and 
rumors. People will think that I have fled to be 
out of their way, whereas, I don’t mind them the 
least little bit.” 

So I went back and peace reigned once more. 
The weather was simply lovely and we almost lived 
out of doors. Indeed we regularly had breakfast 
and tea out of doors and greatly enjoyed the plan. 
People came and went, and ’we used to hustle the 
lovers out of the way of those that were likely to 
be too inquisitive, and we shut up any hints regard- 
ing them with the most ruthless bluntness. So 
the blazing summer days went by, each one bring- 
ing the two nearer to their freedom from vexation 
and worry. And every day any lingering pains 
I might have had drooped and died, and I ceased 


A FACE / KNEW! 


247 


to feel any regret for the lover who was mine no 
longer. 

And then something happened, something awful, 
terrible, in fact the most awful and terrible thing 
which could by any chance possibly have happened 
to me. I began to see again ! 

It came out of something that Madge was saying 
one glorious afternoon when we were sitting in the 
garden. “ I cannot think how it was,” she was 
saying, “ that you did not know that Austin was 
getting to care for Eve — I mean, I wonder you did 
not know it, as you know other things.” 

“ But no clairvoyante can see for herself,” I 
replied. 

“Is that really so?” she exclaimed in great 
surprise. 

I told her then all about Miss Lorenzi and what 
she had said on the subject, and while I was still 
speaking, some one came out of the house and fetched 
my sister indoors for some purpose or other. She 
got up and went away saying that she would be 
back presently, and I sat still in the big wicker 
chair thinking how lovely the view was and of how 
Miss Lorenzi had told Austin’s thoughts that day at 
Milan. 

And while I was sitting there alone, I became 
aware that I was going to see something. The 
symptoms, you know, were always just the same, 
my head began to turn slowly round and a thick 
white mist to come in front of my eyes. 

Why, it was an old vision, one which I had seen 


248 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


before which was slowly forming itself before me. 
Yes, I had seen the bare, ill-furnished room before, 
not a doubt of it. Yes, it was a presentment of Mr. 
Warrender s quarters in Dan ford Barracks, just as I 
had seen it that night at the Warren when we were 
all sitting round the table playing the game of conse- 
quences ! Yes, it was the same room, and I saw 
Edward Warrender come in and fill his pipe and 
drag himself wearily away ; then the red-haired 
soldier servant who tidied up the place and, after 
filling his pipe, went out also, shutting the door be- 
hind him. And then the room was empty for a 
little while, and after a minute or so, the door was 
cautiously opened and I saw a, face I knew look in, 
as if to see if any one was there. A face I knew, did 
I say ? A face I knew — the face I knew better than 
all others, the face of Austin Gray ! 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


AN OLD VISION! 

The scene was not new to me, I had seen it all 
before, only the one fact of present importance — 
the personality of the man — had entirely and com- 
pletely slipped my memory. I went through the 
whole of the picture again, just as I had done that 
night when we all sat round the table laughing and 
joking over the game of “Consequences/' I saw the 
man in uniform looking about the room and reading 
the letters, and then I saw him take out a bunch of 
keys and try the drawer in which the star was. I 
saw him take out the star, burn the case, and try to 
push out the stones as he stood on the hearth-rug. 
Yes, I saw it all and the man was Austin, Austin, 
Austin, whom I liked so well and who was going to 
marry my sister, my dear sister, in less than a month’s 
time from now. 

When I came to myself again, I was still alone, 
Heaven be thanked for that, lying back in the big 
basket chair and trembling in every limb as though 
an ague had seized me. Enough, too, to make me 
shiver and shake ! I tried to think, to decide what 
to do for the best — whether to disclose everything 
to Eve, whether to take Madge into my confidence, 

249 


250 A SEVENTH CHILD. 

whether to tax Austin himself with the truth and 
leave to him the task of breaking off the engage- 
ment, making what excuse he would and leaving 
Eve in merciful ignorance of the real cause. All 
these thoughts raced though my mind with the 
rapidity of lightning, yet I could not decide which 
would be the best for me to do. I almost thought 
that the kindest thing to do would be to tell Austin 
that everything had revealed itself to me. Of 
course, this would let him off the easiest of all, and 
yet I was in doubt whether my poor sister would not 
suffer more if I took this course than if I told her the 
truth. After all, why should I think of him ? He 
had not thought of us, for he must have known that 
my father, had he known of his connection with the 
diamond star incident, would have immediately put 
the very strongest veto on even a slight acquaintance, 
to say nothing of a closer tie. 

I was still in the same quandary when Madge 
came back again, and then the footman came out 
with the tea which he set before her on a many- 
tiered table which comfortably held both the tray 
and the different plates of cake and bread and butter 
which constituted the meal. 

"‘I don’t know where the others are,” she said 
cheerfully, as she began to pour out the tea. 
“ Geoffrey won’t be home, of course; he has gone 
to look at a roof some miles away. He is sure to 
get tea there and have a little gossip with Mrs. 
Jones, who loves him dearly and always has quite a 
spread in his honor. I have not the least idea where 


AN OLD VISION! 


25 1 

they can be.” She laughed softly as she spoke ; we 
always spoke of Eve and Austin as they. 

I took my tea from Madge, but did not hazard any 
suggestion as to the whereabouts of the lovers. In 
truth, I was not at all keen on seeing either of them, 
and, indeed, if any one had come suddenly in and 
had told us that Austin had met with an accident 
and had broken his neck, I should have been inclined 
to hail the news as the most merciful thing that had 
happened for many and many a day. 

“Have some cake,” said Madge. “It is extra 
good to-day.” 

She passed the plate of hot tea-cake and I helped 
myself, more to avoid comment than because I 
really wanted to eat anything. I did not, however, 
escape notice, as I was anxious to do. Madge 
looked at me sharply once or twice, on which I tried 
hard to conjure up a smile and an indifferent remark 
about something, anything, in which I succeeded 
very badly. “Nance, you have been seeing things 
again, haven’t you ? ” she asked. 

I looked at her. I tried my best to tell a lie and 
say no, but the words stuck in my throat and refused 
to slip off the end of my tongue. “Don’t ask me 
about it, Madge, and pray don’t say anything about 
it to mother or the others. I — I — have seen a vision 
that came to me before.” 

“You don’t mean it! Which one?” she asked 
eagerly. 

I could not help answering. “ The one where the 
star was stolen,” I replied faintly. I wonder that my 


A SEVENTH CHILD . 


252 

face did not betray me and that she did not see in a 
moment what was in my mind. 

“How very strange!" Madge exclaimed. “I 
wonder why that, of all others, should have come 
back to you? However, thank goodness that it was 
nothing new, that it was not some fresh misfortune/’ 

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that a fresh 
misfortune had come upon us, when a new thought 
flashed suddenly into my mind. What if I parted 
them and it became thought that I had done it from 
sheer spite at Eve’s having taken my lover away 
from me ! I had no proof of the truth of what my 
strange power showed me, no real proof. How 
was I to be quite, quite sure that it really was Austin 
who took the star? I might be sure in my own 
mind, and, after all, it might turn out that he had 
never been in the 26th, and that for once I had been 
deceived. If that should happen, how should I be 
able to make people believe that I had acted from 
the most conscientious motives ? I simply could 
never do it. 

Besides, I was not sure ; my gift might have 
played me false. I had had Austin so much on my 
mind of late that he might have got mixed up in my 
mind with old impressions, and so have worked him- 
self into that particular picture. Could I, dare I 
brand a man forever and ruin my sister’s whole 
chance of happiness by making such a disclosure as 
this ? No, I felt with all my soul that I must keep 
silence, at least for a time, at least until some other 
confirmation of my suspicions came to me. 


AN OLD VISION! 


2 53 


We were still sitting there when the two came 
through the little wicket-gate from the village. I had 
just time to say to Madge — “Don’t say anything 
about that, ” when they reached us. 

“ Is tea over? ” Eve asked, ever so gayly. 

“ Not at all ; Nance and I have only just begun,” 
Madge replied. She had a wonderful arrangement 
for keeping water boiling, a sort of a spirit-lamp 
which stood in a smart brass coal-pan, on which she 
set the kettle over a little open-work brass stand. As 
she spoke, she filled up the teapot and began to pour 
the tea out. “And where have you been, good 
people ? ” she asked. 

“ Down to the village to get some sweets,” replied 
Eve, who was famous in our family for a love of 
sugar-plums. 

“But not beyond anything so homely as tea, I 
hope,” laughed Madge. 

“ By no means ; on the contrary, I am ready for 
an enormous feed,” Eve declared. 

They both seemed in the very best of spirits, in- 
deep it would be hard to say whether Eve or Austin 
was the gayer of the two. Eve displayed her sweets 
and divided them out among us, and Austin declared 
that Dagenham was so cheap, judging by the price 
of lollipops, that it would be a wise move to take a 
small house and settle there. Then Madge gave her 
experiences of the absolute want of cheapness of 
Dagenham and everything in it, and they talked and 
chaffed each other finely, while I sat still and silent 
thinking of what had happened a short time earlier 


254 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


and wondering whether it were true or not. I 
watched him more closely than I had ever done, but 
I could not tell at all if I were right or wrong, only a 
sort of painful recognition came to me that this was 
why I fancied I had seen him before. 

I went back over that time, trying to recall his 
tone and look when I declared that I was sure we had 
met before, but nothing came to help me in any way. 
I had only a vivid remembrance of his scoffing air 
when he declared that he did not believe in anything 
of the kind, and that his only uncanny superstition 
was that we had lived many times and that we went 
up or down in the world according to the way in 
which we had behaved ourselves in our last phase of 
life. 

Yet, why should that particular dream or mental 
picture have come back to me ? I had not thought 
of it for ages, there had been nothing which need 
in any way have recalled it to me, and, moreover, it 
seemed as fresh to me as on the day on which it 
happened. Was it, or was it not, true? Had 
he, or had he not, done it? These two questions 
put themselves to me over and over again, in fifty 
different forms at least. And at the end I was just 
as puzzled and just as uncertain as I had been in the 
beginning. 

At last Eve noticed that I was unusually quiet. 
I fancy that she had always a lingering fear that I 
was breaking my heart, and every now and then 
felt qualms of conscience on my account. So she 
was always the one to notice if anything went at 


AN OLD VISION! 


255 


all wrong with me, and she noticed my silence then. 
“You are very quiet, Nancy,’' she said, looking at 
me a little anxiously. 

“A bit of a headache,” I replied, with what I 
knew must be an admirable carelessness. “Noth- 
ing for you to worry about.” Well, to be candid, 
that was neither more nor less than a downright lie, 
but I felt that it was a forgivable one, for, after all, 
why should I harry her with what was on my mind ? 
It was no fault of hers, even if the very worst 
proved to be true. 

“The sun has been so hot to-day,” she said, 
putting up her hand and smoothing back her own 
heavy hair, which hung thickly over her forehead. 
Then changed her tone. . . “ Have a sweetie ; they 
are really not half bad for a village shop. Try a 
bit of this nougat ! Really I could scarcely be- 
lieve my eyes when I saw it glorifying the little 
COUnterT 

I did try a piece of the nougat, for it was a con- 
fection of which I was known to be fond and my 
refusal would only have excited further comment. 
It was good nougat too, very good, and I congratu- 
lated Eve on her find. Then they went on talking 
and making fun and I slipped back into my quietude 
without exciting any more remarks, for which I was 
thankful. So we dawdled through that lovely sum- 
mer afternoon, and presently the nurse brought out 
the little heir, who came and toddled to and fro as 
fine and bright a little fellow as any mother was 
ever proud of. He too had his share of the nougat 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


256 

and other sweets, perhaps rather more than his 
share, but then, as Eve said, who could resist him ? 
Certainly none of us. 

While young Reggie was with us he found his 
way to Austin’s side and clambered on to his knee, 
where he sat playing peep- bo with me. You see, 
I was sitting next to Austin, and so the child was 
between us. The effect of this was like magic, for 
I suddenly became aware that the little fellow had 
formed a perfect medium between us and that I 
could read Austin’s thoughts just as I could read a 
book. 

My first impression was one of huge and over- 
whelming self-reproach, of wave after wave of 
absolute penitence, flooding his whole nature and 
filling his heart with alternate grief and gushes of 
love. This lasted so long that I was dazzled by it, 
dazzled and confused. I took the child’s little 
chubby hand in mind and tried with all my might to 
learn the cause of this strange state of feeling. I 
had not long to wait. The boy sat quietly munch- 
ing his bar of nougat and kept as still as if he had 
known my reason for wishing him to do so. First 
there came to me the thought that this was the 
dearest little chap that I had ever seen, that he was 
Eve’s nephew and her favorite among all children. 
Then that there might one day come to me — to the 
thinker (that, of course, was Austin, for the 
thoughts came straight to me of his) just such a dear 
little child, his and Eve’s ! The very thought 
seemed to fill his heart with an overwhelming sense 


AN OLD VISION! 


2 57 


of intense love, and was followed by a feeling of 
horror that possibly some day an enemy might 
desire to harm the child, as one had desired to harm 
this child, not of ill-will towards the child himself, 
but out of enmity to his parents. 

Then through that dear little innocent child came 
as clear to my mind as a painted picture the unrav- 
elling of the mystery of Joan Manning. My God ! I 
tell you I don’t know how I sat there, calmly and 
outwardly in peace with all men, and saw all that 
came to my over-wrought brain that day. But I did 
it ; I had a purpose to win, an end to gain, and I 
did it somehow or other. 

First there came back to me that scene in which 
Joan Manning’s real position had been revealed to 
me. I learned more about her now than I had 
gathered then, for I knew in a moment through the 
strange mediumship of Austin and the child, that 
she had been on terms of the most complete inti- 
macy with my sister’s lover, and that it was 
through him and at his instigation that she had 
entered my sister’s service and had tried to poison 
her child ! 

With what horror I received all these impressions 
I can hardly describe. I managed to keep my head 
so that I did not let the others know what was going 
on, and I clutched hold of Reggie with a despairing 
grip so as to miss nothing of what was in Austin 
Gray’s soul. I pitied him, oh, yes, yes, with all my 
heart. That was the burden of his thoughts, wave 
after wave of absolute penitence, mingled with de- 


258 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


voutest pseansof thankfulness that the plot had been 
discovered in time. And for Joan Manning no more 
than an overweening horror, as for some devil that 
would drag him down to everlasting hell ! What 
thoughts, what anguish, what regret, and, hovering 
over all, his intense love for Eve, a love that was as 
a religion, a creed, an eternity ! 

The child struggled down from off my knee and 
the visions vanished in a moment. I looked at 
Austin and asked myself whether he was as I had 
gathered from my impressions of his thoughts — 
whether all this was but the imaginings of an over- 
wrought brain, the mere outcome of a fevered fancy, 
or whether it was all true ? I watched him narrowly 
as he sat beside me in a huge basket-chair, his feet 
stretched out in front of him and a cigarette between 
his lips. Yes, it was true enough ! I saw that the 
cigarette had gone out, though he had not smoked 
more than a third of it, and his thoughts were evi- 
dently very far away. In my anxiety I put out my 
hand and quietly laid it on his. “ A penny for your 
thoughts, Austin,” I said, in as light a tone as I 
could assume. 

He started as if he had been shot and shook 
my hand off, decidedly, sitting up straight in his 
chair and shaking himself together in a resolute 
way, which quite prevented my touching him again. 
“ I beg your pardon . . . I was very rude. In 

truth, my thoughts were very far away at that 
moment. Forgive me, it was quite unpardonable.” 

He put the cigarette between his lips again and 


AN OLD VISION! 


2 59 

tried to smoke again. . ‘"It has gone out,’' I 
said quietly. 

He threw it away and then he turned and looked 
at me. 

“What is it, Nancy? ” he said. 

“What is what? ” I returned, evading the implied 
question. * 

“Why did you want to know what I was think- 
ing of?” he asked, in an undertone, for the 
others were gayly laughing over some antics of the 
child’s. 

“ You looked as if your thoughts might be inter- 
esting,” I replied. 

“ God knows they were not that,” he said in a 
very bitter tone. “At all events, my best wish for 
you is that you may never have such thoughts. 
But you never could. It is impossible.” 

“ I sincerely hope so,” I said, gravely. 

1 1 What do you mean ? ” 

“They were evidently not pleasant,” I said. 
“Or you would not have spoken as you did just 
now. ” 

Madge made a move just then, and I rose at 
once and followed her into the house. She slipped 
her hand under my arm as we walked along the 
broad terrace walk. “My dear child,” she said 
kindly, “ I do not know whether you are feeling ill 
or not, but you look as white as a ghost.” 

“Oh, my head is all queer to-day,” I replied. 
“Don’t worry about me. I shall be all right when 
I have had a good sleep.” 


26 o 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“You don’t think there is anything in your seeing 
that room again ? ” she asked. 

“ How anything ? What do you mean ? ” 

“Well, one never knows. It seems strange that 
you should see it at all, after all these years and 
when there has been nothing in any way to bring 
it back to mind. I don’t understand it all.” 

“ Oh, one cannot account for these things, 
Madge,” I said vehemently. . . “ You will never 

know how I wish with all my heart and soul that I 
was like other people. I know this power of mine 
will kill me one of these days. I feel convinced of 
it. And what is the good of it? If it would warn 
me, it would then be different. But it only tells 
me something which nothing can alter. What’s 
the good of it ? ” 

“ Well, I don’t see how you can say that,” Madge 
replied seriously. “We owe our child’s life to it, 
and there was that affair of the star. We don’t 
know how that might have affected us all if you 
had not found out who really took it. Think of the 
man who was accused of it. No, dear, it is a great 
nuisance to you, but you must not say that there 
is no good in it, for we have proved that there is. 
Why . . .” with a great shuddering sigh that 

was half a gasp for breath, “I might have married 
that . . . other one . . . Oh, Nancy, dar- 

ling, don’t ever say again that there is no good in it. 
I know that it has made all the difference in my 
life.” 

Of course, I could not controvert anything of 


AN OLD VISION! 


26 


this, so I parted from my sister with a careless 
word and went straight to my own room. And 
once there, I sat down by the open window and 
tried to think what I had better do. What could 
I do ? For the life of me I did not know, I 
could not tell. I had gained enough of his thoughts 
to know that let his past be what it might, Austin 
Gray was simply devoted to my sister now and that 
his whole thoughts were of regret for the villanies 
he had perpetrated in the past. His whole 
desires for the future were to make himself more 
worthy of her, to get closer and closer to her so 
that her white life might purify his black one. 
And it was black, the blackest with which I had 
ever been brought in contact. 

I wondered why it had been that he had any 
desire to do the kind of things of which I knew him 
to be guilty, for they were for the most part things of 
which no man brought up in the position of a gentle- 
man is ever suspected One can understand the man, 
world- worn and steeped in sin from his cradle upward, 
taking his neighbors’ goods, in short being a thief. 
One can understand the man hungered and home- 
less, stealing food with which to satisfy his natural 
cravings or the means with which he may get food. 
But one cannot understand the man, who has 
large means of his own, yielding to an impulse 
which will if found out ensure his ruin, and prevent 
his well-being in this world forever. And even if, 
to take the most merciful view, we regarded such a 
theft as the act of a kleptomaniac, the same excuse 


262 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


did not hold good for those other things that he had 
done, the poisoning of Madge’s little child, well, 
the attempted poisoning, I perhaps should rather 
say, and the leaving of his accomplice in prison 
while he went off scot-free and was actually on the 
verge of marriage with another. 

As all these thoughts came crowding in upon 
my brain, I felt that however unpalatable the task 
would be, I could not, must not hide the truth any 
longer, and I made up my mind that after dinner 
I would tell Madge everything. She, I knew, would 
be merciful, and spare me the hideous task of 
denouncing him, and Geoffrey would go over to the 
Warren and break the horrid news to my father and 
mother. But oh, though I had made up my mind, 
the whole thing was hideous, most hideous, and at 
chat moment I would gladly have run away to the 
uttermost ends of the earth, so that I might hide 
myself from every one I knew forever. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


ONE GOLDEN THREAD OF TRIUMPH ! 

I was late for dinner that evening. I had forgotten 
until quite the last moment that there were guests 
to dinner — not exactly a dinner-party, just the 
rector and his wife, and a young man owning the 
place next to Dagenham. The odd thing was that 
Madge was late also. When I got down into the 
drawing-room I found the three guests patiently 
waiting and trying to look as if it were quite the 
usual thing to reach the drawing-room before the 
hostess. True, Geoffrey was there, and he had 
evidently apologized duly and truly, for he had got 
his excuses so firmly implanted on his mind that he 
even made them to me. 

‘‘The fact is,” he said, “Madge has had an ac- 
cident. She will be here in a few minutes.” 

“ Is she hurt? What has happened? ” I asked in 
alarm. 

“No, no, she is not hurt at all ; but the youngster 
was in our room helping us to dress, and he upset 
a bottle of hair-oil all down his mother’s gown. ” 

“ I did not know Madge used hair-oil,” I said 
feeling greatly relieved that the accident was noth- 
ing more serious. 


263 


264 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“ No more she does ; it was brilliantine of mine,” 
Geoffrey admitted. “ But, of course, she had to 
change her frock, and, as luck would have it, it was 
one of those affairs which lace up, and it took as 
much time undoing as it had taken putting on.” 

‘‘It was lucky it was nothing worse,” I said, sit- 
ting down by Mrs. Ladworth. “And, at such times, 
one’s fingers seem to be all thumbs.” 

“Oh, yes, indeed they do ; but there is no need 
for Mrs. Dagenham to put herself out about it. It 
won’t hurt us to wait ten minutes or so,” was the 
reply of the parson’s kind little wife, who was her- 
self a woman who made it one of the first rules of 
life never to worry about unnecessary things. 

“ And as nobody else is ready in time to-night, 
perhaps it is just as well that the hostess should be 
late too,” I returned, smiling. 

However, the very next one to appear was Madge 
herself, who came in dressed in a black gown with a 
good deal of white lace about it and full of pretty 
apologies. Then Eve followed, and finally Austin 
himself appeared, looking so handsome, so manly, 
so happy and contented with himself and all the 
world, thet I came to the conclusion that my 
imagination had been playing me false and that I 
had been altogether and entirely mistaken in having 
in any way mixed him up with those old and tragic 
visions of my past. 

Dinner was served immediately, and as the table 
at Dagenham was a round one and our party one 
of eight, Madge had departed from the conventional 


ONE GOLDEN THREAD OF TRIUMPH! 265 

pairing off and placing of the diners so that husbands 
and wives might not sit together. I was sent in 
with Austin and had the rector on my other hand, 
and Eve sat next to Austin on his left hand. 
For a party of eight it was an admirably arranged 
table, and everybody seemed perfectly satisfied with 
his or her fate. 

For myself, I was glad to be next to Austin, for I 
knew that I should be sure to have a chance of 
communicating with his thoughts, and really, his 
whole appearance had so shaken my belief in what 
I found out, that I was more doubtful than ever as 
to the advisability of saying so much as a single 
word about him. 

We had just got settled in our places when Madge 
leaned forward and said to me : 

“Oh, by the way, Nancy, I’ve got a piece of news 
for you. Who do you think has come to Minchester 
and is coming out here to-morrow morning to see 
us ? ” 

“ How should I know?”! returned, for I never 
was good at guessing anything. 

‘ ‘ Mr. Warrender, Edward Warrender,” said Madge. 
“ Mother says he is just the same as he used to be, 
not altered at all. ” 

“Mr. Warrender ! ” I echoed. 

Involuntarily, I turned to see what effect this 
piece of news would have upon Austin. And, if 
I had doubted for a few minutes the justice of my 
suspicions, the accuracy of my strange power, it 
was surely confirmed in that moment, for his face 


266 n 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


was the color of ashes and his hand, which was 
resting on the edge of the table, was shaking 
visibly. In very pity I forbore to look any longer, 
but turned again to Madge, asking when she had 
heard the news. 

“ I have just had a letter from mother. I should 
have thought that she would have been upset by the 
seeing him, but apparently she is just as delighted 
as if one of her own sons had come back again. I 
am so glad that it is so. He is a dear boy, and, you 
know,” she added, turning to Mr. Ladworth, “ he 
was our dear Tom’s greatest friend and was with 
him when he died.” 

I did not listen to what Mr. Ladworth had to say, 
but sat back in my chair wishing I were in bed, 
away, anywhere but where I was. I should have 
to tell all I knew now, if I did not the first time that 
Austin and Edward Warren der met ; everything 
would of necessity come out. How I wished it 
might come out without my being mixed up in it. 

I scarcely know how it was, but somehow that 
night I became aware that I could read Austin’s 
thoughts as clearly as I could read a book and with- 
out any medium or contact. I had the merciful 
shield of a headache, so that I could sit back in my 
chair and let the tide of food and conversation go 
on without me. And as I sat there, I knew just 
what was passing in the mind of the man beside 
me. What tumult of thoughts, of hopes, fears, 
regrets, and through all just one golden thread of 
triumph — I suppose at having won Eve’s love. 


ONE GOLDEN THREAD OF TRIUMPH ! 267 

And I was sorry for him too. He did not know 
the colonel as we did, or surely there would be no 
thread of triumph in that conflicting chaos of ideas ! 
Yes, I was sorry for him, and yet for all our sakes I 
was glad that Edward Warrender had arrived before 
it was too late, before he and Eve had become 
one. 

I scarcely know how I got through that dinner. 
Once or twice Madge asked me in an undertone if 
my head was very bad, and once if I would like to 
go away from the table. “Not at all,” I replied, 
“my head is not aching so very much now. I 
would much rather stay, though I don’t care to talk 
much.” 

Yes, I wanted to stay that I might know still 
further the workings of Austin Gray’s mind and that 
I might satisfy myself that he would not stay to meet 
Edward Warrender face to face. He only spoke to 
me once or twice during the whole of the meal, but 
he talked in a very low voice to Eve, and though I 
tried to hear the subject of their conversation, I did 
not succeed in doing so. I half fancied that he had an 
idea of leaving Dagenham early in the morning and 
that he would persuade Eve to go with him or to join 
him later on. And in order to prevent her from 
doing that I fully made up my mind that I would 
tell her everything, even to the fact of his having 
instigated that woman to make away with Madge’s 
little child. 

I was just thinking this when an awful thought came 
into my mind, came like a flash of light ; that was not 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


2<J$ 

Austin Grays only villany ! What about that affair 
when Tom was nearly stabbed to death by a native, 
who was killed by his dog? Surely, he was at the 
bottom of that also. The very idea served almost to 
petrify me. I shrank away from him as if he might 
suddenly turn and kill me without word or warning. 

But the next minute, the impression came to me 
that Austin had no such thought in his mind, no 
such desire in his heart, it was a crushed and stricken 
man who sat beside me, and if he could have undone 
all the black and horrid past, he would have done it 
at any price. If he could have started straight and 
clean, with such a father and mother as we had had, 
if he could have had an Eve from the beginning, he 
would perhaps never have known those wild desires 
for revenge, that black longing to crush his enemies 
under his feet that had so influenced his life after- 
ward. At least I know that this was the way in 
which he put it to himself, as he sat beside me turn- 
ing over in his mind all that had happened in the 
past and all that was likely to happen in the future. 
And through all, there ran that one golden thread of 
triumph ! 

By the time the meal was over and we four ladies 
were free to go into the cool drawing-room I was 
feeling perfectly exhausted and nerve-spent. You 
see, during the past few hours I had passed through 
a sort of mental furnace and, so far from having 
come out of the fire softened and chastened, I was 
only conscious of a general feeling of having been 
bruised and beaten. 


ONE GOLDEN THREAD OF TRIUMPH! 269 

Madge touched my hand as I passed by on my 
way to the long French window opening on to the 
terrace. “ I believe your head has been dreadful, 
dear,” she said pitifully. 

“Oh, no, it is not my head especially,” I replied. 
“ I am going outside to get a breath of air this hot 
night.” 

“It is hot. Mrs. Ladworth, would you like to go 
on the terrace ? ” 

“ I think it would be rather nice,” said she. 

“ Then let us go out. We will have our coffee 
out there,” said Madge, who loved to be out of doors, 
and as we used to tell her would like to sleep on the 
terrace if such habit were feasible. 

Accordingly, we all trooped out ; well, I might as 
well have said that the four of us did so. We were 
soon joined by the men, who declared that it was 
too hot for them to care for cigarettes or wine. 
They did not find it too hot for coffee, and very soon 
we found it so much too cool that we were glad to 
go in again and seek the shelter of the house. 

Usually, little dinner parties in the country are 
kept up rather late, but it happened that Mr. and 
Mrs. Ladworth were going off on their summer 
holiday, which they meant to spend in Switzerland, 
and were starting from Dagenham at six o'clock in 
the morning. They naturally wanted to get to bed in 
tolerably good time and so left very soon after we 
went indoors. Mr. Vane, however, remained on and 
Geoffrey proposed a game of “ Poker ” by way of en- 
livening ourselves. I think we were all glad enough 


270- 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


and we sat down at once, and Geoffrey began the 
work of portioning out the counters. Mr. Vane 
came and sat by me and asked me if I would go 
partners with him, which I declined to do, having 
always magic luck at cards, and therefore never being 
keen on sharing it with any one else. He went 
partners with Madge instead, Geoffrey played for 
himself and Eve went in with Austin. We began 
with a jack-pot and had got as far as “ Aces or bet- 
ter, ” when there was a sound of wheels along the 
drive which made Geoffrey look up at Mr. Vane. 

“Is that your trap, Vane ? ” he asked. “ Why did 
you not put up here ? ” 

“I did,” said he. “It’s not mine. I don’t let 
my fellow drive at that pace.” 

Geoffrey went on dealing and for a moment we 
thought no more of the trap on the drive. Then 
there was the sound of voices in the hall, and the 
next moment my father, followed by Edward War- 
render, strode into the room. 

“I must apologize for disturbing you at this un- 
seemly hour, Geoffrey,” he said brusquely. “But 
information so important has come to me this even- 
ing that I could not wait until morning to set my 
mind and my wife’s mind at rest. Warrender, have 
you ever seen this gentleman before ? ” He pointed 
at Austin, who had risen to his feet, and was stand- 
ing right under the glare of a tall lamp, the very pict- 
ure of a hunted man tracked to earth at last. 

“Yes, Colonel Reynard, it is the same as I ex- 
pected. ” 


ONE GOLDEN THREAD OF TRIUMPH l 271 


“ The same Austin Gray who was for about a year 
in the 26th Hussars and who left the regiment and 
the service, owing to certain disclosures made through 
my daughter here,” indicating me as he spoke. 

“It is the same,” said Mr. Warrender quietly. 

My father moved a step nearer to Austin. “Sir,” 
he said, speaking with much calmness and dignity, 
“ I do not think that this matter need be further 
discussed. You will understand without my saying 
so, that any marriage between you and my daughter 
is quite impossible.” 

“ Why is it impossible ? ” demanded Eve, coming 
forward. 1 1 What does all this mean ? ” 

“You heard what Mr. Warrender said . . . You 
remember the incident of the diamond-star which 
Nancy here saw . . . But I see you do remember 
it. This gentleman who does you the honor to wish 
to marry you is the hero of that incident. ” 

Eve turned to Austin. “Say this is not true!” 
she said imperatively. 

“I cannot say so,” he replied steadily. 

She went a step nearer to him and laid her hand 
on his arm. “Was this what you meant? ” 

“Yes.” 

“You had better go home with me to-night,” my 
father went on addressing Eve and ignoring Austin 
altogether. 

“No, I shall stay here,” she replied, in the firm 
tone we all knew so well. 

“ But what is the use? The sooner everything is 
finally over the better.” 


272 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


“Nothing can be over,” she said, in a perfectly 
unmoved voice. 

“What do you mean? You can have no idea 
of marrying this man ! ” my father cried passion- 
ately. 

There was a moment’s silence. Then Eve turned 
and took Austin’s hand. “ I have married him,” she 
said simply. “And I am quite willing to abide by 
my choice.” 

“ You have married him ! ” cried my father, stag- 
gering back as if some one had struck him a blow. 
“ When?” 

“Yesterday morning,” replied Eve steadily. 

So this was the meaning of their long absence and 
their jubilant looks when they returned ? And this 
was the meaning of that one golden thread of tri- 
umph which had under-run all the conflict of tem- 
pestuous thoughts that for hours had been running 
riot in his soul. 

My father went close to Eve. “My dear child,” 
he said. “You don’t understand everything ; you 
don’t know half the truth. It is impossible that you 
can live with this man as his wife. We must try to 
get the marriage dissolved, and failing that you 
must be content to come home and try to forget 
that such wreck and ruin has ever come into your 
life. Don’t you understand that this man is a thief, 
that he connived to take your favorite brother’s life 
in India, and that Tom would have died by the hand 
of an assassin had not Heaven itself frustrated his 
designs ? This man cannot deny that his was the 


ONE GOLDEN THREAD OE TRIUMPH ! 273 


hand that pulled the string when Madge’s little child 
nearly died by the hand of this man’s . . . But 
there, I need surely say no more unless it is that 
when he chanced to come across us in Italy . . . 
whether by accident or design, I do not pretend to 
say ... he did not hesitate to pretend an affec- 
tion for Nancy, which he never felt, and by which he 
only intended to revenge himself still further upon 
us. ” 

“ On my soul, NO,” cried Austin, at this moment. 

My father turned and looked at him but said 
never a word. “Eve, I know that this is a most 
horrible misfortune which has come upon you. 
My dear, it shall be the object of our lives 
to . . 

But here Eve put up her hand. “Please stop ! ” 
she said, in a strangely fixed voice. “It is no use 
saying any more. I have quite made up my mind, 
I have made my bed . . . and I must lie on it.” 

I don’t know what happened next. I turned and 
fled out into the night, for I could not bear to hear 
any more. I tore along to the end of the terrace 
and there I leaned upon the wall overlooking the 
corner of the park and sobbed out my anguish to the 
chill summer night. Then a hand was laid on my 
shoulder and a voice sounded in my ear . . . 
“Nancy . . . Nancy . . . don’t blame me. When 
I knew it was the same fellow, what else could I 
do? If I had known that she was married to him, 
I would have held my tongue forever, forever. 
But how was I to know ! ” 


A SEVENTH CHILD. 


274 

\ 

“Oh, I have known it all for days,” I cried, weep- 
ing wildly. “I was going to tell . . . oh, why 
should it be ? What shall I do-? ” 

“ But you did not really care for him? ” he asked 
anxiously. 

“No, no, of course. But Eve . . . she worships 
him, worships him. How did father find out about 
Tom ? ” 

“I don’t know. I think it must have come to him 
as a possibility and he said it on chance, ” he re- 
plied. “Anyway, the shot struck home.” 

I turned to go in. The night air was cold and I 
was shivering. He too turned and walked back 
beside me. “Nancy,” he said, half hesitatingly, 
when we got nearly to the window. “I . . I . . 
wanted to say something to you, and after this awful 
scene to-night, I hardly know how to say it. It’s 
just this. You’ll say that you are glad to see me 
. . . you’ll not send me away ... I couldn’t help 
all this, you knoHv, and I . . .” 

I held my hand out to him. “ Let us go in,” I 
said. 


THE END. 


THE 


SEVENTH CHILD. 


BY 


JOHN STRANGE WINTER. 


NEW YORK 

J. SELWIN TAIT & SONS. 


65 FIFTH AVENUE. 











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